


Desideratum

by JediMordsith



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time, Force Woo, Hurt/Comfort, Midi-chlorians, Slavery, Smut, questionable decision making, there are things going on that are not what they seem, x-wing smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-02-04 02:59:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12761724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediMordsith/pseuds/JediMordsith
Summary: Mara has rules. Weird ones. And secrets. Lots of them. The whole thing is strange, and Luke can't get enough.





	1. Mos Eisley

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks owed to Frangipani who helped me work through this idea and pare it down into something managable instead of another unreasonably and unnecessarily sprawling epic. 
> 
> Obviously, Senni is one of Mara's aliases.
> 
> Also, fair warning, after this chapter there's going to be a ridiculous amount of smut here. If that's not your cup of tea, skip this fic entirely.

_Mos Eisley, Tatooine 0 BBY_

Luke Skywalker slouched more deeply into the oriel of the shadowy booth and stabbed petulantly at his dish-watery drink with a finger. After the incident earlier – which hadn’t been even _remotely_ his fault – he’d been banished to this crummy corner with firm instructions to _wait_. It was humiliating, is what it was. How was it _his_ fault that Ben – no, _Obi-wan_ _–_ had sidled up to the bar next to some di'kut carrying the death mark in twelve systems? ( _Twelve._ How does that even happen?) Or that the sleemo in question had instantly taken offense to the depressed, newly-orphaned (again) moisture farmer slumping silently over the tacky bar, very carefully minding his own business?

 _It wasn’t,_ Luke thought to himself emphatically. _It wasn’t my fault and it isn’t fair that I got stuffed back in this stupid corner while Ben finds us transport to Alderaan._

It didn't help that the raucous babble of drunken spacer crews and the Bith band’s unrelentingly chipper jizz music seemed to be just as loud here in the cantina's seediest recesses as it had been at the bar. The noise was as abrading as standing naked in a sandstorm and his battered spirit chafed at it. Uncle Owen would never have set foot in a place like this. But Uncle Owen wasn’t here. Would never be here again. The memory of two charred skeletons stretched prone in a boiling cloud of oily smoke seared itself anew across his vision and he choked, stabbing too hard and sloshing the dingy liquor over the tumbler's frosted sides and onto the pockmarked table.

“Hey, Farmboy.”

Luke’s head snapped up. For a moment, his mind went completely blank. He stared, slack-jawed, as the prettiest girl he’d ever seen slid a fat mug onto his table and invited herself to the bench opposite him. She was swathed head to hip in creamy linen and the aristocratic lines of her nose and prominent cheekbones bore the faint chalky cast of thickly applied sun-protectant powder. But it was her _eyes_ that made his mouth go dry. Clear and bright, they were the hue of polished jade and fixed on him with a look that far surpassed brazen interest.

Where had he seen that expression before? The question fizzled like a damp firecracker in his short-circuiting brain and was promptly twinged out of existence by an internal wince when he heard himself say, somewhat dreamily, “hello.”

 _Great, Skywalker,_ he groaned inwardly. _Way to wow her with your charm._

“The ale here is shavit.” She nodded to the mess in front of him. “Let me buy you something else.” Without waiting for an answer, she lifted a hand, summoning a creaky, wobbly waitdroid of ancient, untenable manufacture. “Tatooine Sunset?” she asked. “I've heard they're good here.” A frown crossed her features. “It'd be pretty embarrassing if they weren't, actually. Or something stronger? A Starshine Special?”

Luke blinked as the droid squeaked to a stop beside the table. “Uh, Starshine would be great. Thanks.”

“Starshine Special,” the girl repeated confidently to the serving unit. “Biggest you've got.” She pointed to her own mug. “And another one of these. On my tab.”

The droid beeped acknowledgment and rolled away.

The girl planted an elbow on the table and propped her chin in her hand, apparently having not the least of compunction about continuing to openly stare at him. “What brings you to a dive like this?”

“We're here to hire transport,” Luke told her, without thinking. “To Alderaan.”

“We?”

Relief swept through him. _She didn't see the incident earlier!_ “Me and my Master.”

Her expression didn't change but her eyes narrowed sharply. “You're a slave?”

“No!” He shook his head vigorously, lifted his hands palms out in a halting gesture. “It's not like that! It's...” It occurred to him then exactly how little he knew of the arrangement he'd so hastily committed to. “Um, it's an apprenticeship,” he hedged. “Sort of. I'm Luke Skywalker, by the way.”

“Senni Kiffu,” she returned, then added with a roguish grin, “At least that's what it says on my identi-tab today.”

They were interrupted by the serving droid, who deposited their drinks perfunctorily before trundling away again.

“What are you drinking?” Luke asked curiously, eying her mugs.

“Javarican espresso,” she answered, taking a hearty swig. “Tastes like mud, but you can't beat the caffeine content.”

“You should be careful with that,” he warned. “Caffeine makes the heat around here hit a lot harder. Especially if you're not used to it.”

“I'll manage.” She waved off his concern. “I hope to be getting off this rock soon, too.”

“Where are you headed?” Luke found himself harboring a ridiculously far-flung hope that she'd somehow say Alderaan.

“Coreward,” she answered, vaguely, taking another draught of her espresso. “My contact should be here soon with my travel arrangements.”

“There you are.” Ben's voice was warm and calm. He inexplicably sounded mildly pleased to have found his apprentice, despite Luke being exactly where he'd been told to sit and stay. “I've found us -.” He cut off abruptly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at Senni.

Luke was startled to realize that it was the first time he'd ever seen Ben look surprised by something. The events of the last day or so should have been enough to throw anyone for a loop, but Kenobi had been resolutely placid and composed at every step. Now, suddenly, he looked as if he'd discovered an Akivan viper in his bed.

“What are you?” he asked, his voice dropping and ringed with warning. “And what do you want with the boy?”

 _Who,_ Luke's mind corrected the question automatically. _Who are you._

Senni's gaze ran over the Jedi with a sort of cautious dubiousness, as if she'd just been confronted by a living specimen of an extremely dangerous animal thought long extinct. She shifted her weight almost imperceptibly and shot back, defensively, “we're having a drink.”

“Not anymore.” Ben declared, sternly. Then, to Luke, said, “we're leaving. Come along.”

“But -.”

“ _Now_ , if you please.” Ben held out an open hand toward Luke's shoulder in quiet insistence but never took his eyes off Senni.

Luke took a quick gulp of his Starshine, refusing (by of sheer force of will) not to cough at the potent burn and looked longingly – and more than a little apologetically - at Senni. “It was nice to meet you.”

Out of nowhere, the giant, furry bulk of a wookie appeared behind Ben and whuffed a low warning. As fast as it had come, it somehow dissolved its massive bulk back into the shadows of the cantina. “We have company,” Ben muttered, scanning the room.

Luke's eyes followed, his stomach clenching and his heart sinking when he caught sight of the Imperial Officer and two Stormtroopers speaking to the bartender.

“You're of interest to the Empire?” Senni addressed the question to Luke.

“That's none of your concern,” Ben interjected, obviously rapidly assessing the situation and evaluating their options.

“We're not dangerous,” Luke rushed to assure her. “It's… complicated.”

“Complicated,” she murmured, her lips quirking up slightly. “Yeah, I bet you are.”

He wasn't at all clear if it was the sultry tone, the teasing hint of a smile, or the unusual intensity with which she was staring at him again, but Luke felt the words like a zing of electricity straight down his spine.

“Lucky thing for you, I can do complicated, too.” Senni slid out of her seat, revealing an array of weapons strapped over fawn-colored leather leggings and tucked into the top of her tall, scuffed black boots. She tipped her head to the right. “There's a concealed service door three booths that way. Left wall. I'll buy you time.”

Scooping up Luke's abandoned Starshine and shooting him a last, lingering look, she sauntered away. Luke's eyes riveted of their own volition to the swing of her hips as she approached the Imperials and insinuated herself into their conversation.

“Let's go.”

Ben's hand was on his shoulder, then, drawing him away. Luke caught one last glimpse of Senni before they were hustling around the corner and escaping once again.

 _Biggs' going away party._ The thought appeared seemingly at random as they ducked through the access door. The Darklighters had spent an absurd amount of money to have a sic-six-layer-cake made and brought in to celebrate their son's acceptance to the Academy. Every youngling in the place had gathered round and stared at it with a rapt – almost prurient – fascination, their faces painted with the exact same unblinking intensity with which Senni had regarded him.

Emerging into the sweltering heat and unsavory smells of the alley behind the cantina, Luke grinned.


	2. Love and War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone and hurting, Luke finds comfort in Mara en route to Alderaan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is Thanksgiving, and I am thankful for the Mara Jade fan community here on AO3 - you guys are a blessing to me, thank you! Have some smut in appreciation. : )
> 
> Also, as a general rule, I don't go in for Luke calling Mara 'baby' as a term of affection. However, they're both so young and know each other so little here that it seemed appropriate for this encounter.

“ _She_ wasn't in the contract!” Han shouted at Ben, thrusting an accusatory finger toward the dejarik table.

Senni ignored the gesture just as she had the entire argument thus far, digging through the _Falcon's_ rather specious med kit to fish out a medicated wipe. She'd discarded her desert head wrap, leaving Luke struggling (somewhat unsuccessfully) not to gape at the long, tight braid of gold-kissed crimson hair that had fallen over her shoulder as she tended to her arm. The blaster burn on her left bicep was ugly, but she picked fabric out of the charred edges of the wound silently with only the occasional grimace. 

“In light of the situation,” Ben replied, a ripple of displeasure beneath his imperturbable outer calm, “I didn't see that we had much choice. The stormtroopers were right there, and she knew our destination. Leaving her behind was too much of a risk.” 

“She saved our lives!” Luke blurted, incredulously. (Did everyone else have heat-stroke? Were they _crazy_? You were supposed to _thank_ people who saved your life – not question their motives!) “We'd _never_ have gotten out of there if she hadn't disabled that mag lock!” 

“Exactly how _did_ you do that?” Kenobi asked, his face scrunching slightly as he regarded the girl. 

“Don't even think about it,” she snapped, peeling a bacta patch free of its sterile wrapper and slapping it over the scorched flesh. “Stay the kriff out of my head.” Snatching up the various bits of blackened fabric, the medical supply wrappers, and her head scarf, Senni shoved to her feet, turning pointedly away from Kenobi and toward Solo. “I'll get off your ship as soon as there's somewhere to get off _to_. In the meantime, point me to a room. I'm not sitting around getting dissected by _him_.” 

Solo glowered at her and flung his hands out. “I ain't got any spare rooms,” he drawled irritably. “Except the one they're stayin' in. I wasn't expecting extra company – we specialize in _cargo_.” 

“Fine,” she sniped back, lifting her chin defiantly. “Point me to a cargo hold, then. I can sleep anywhere.” 

“That way,” he flicked his fingers toward one of the _Falcon's_ curved corridors. “Take a left, then a right. Can't miss it.” 

Senni stalked off without another word. 

Han watched her go, then turned back to the others, his expression twisting speculatively. “Whadda ya think she was doing back there anyway? That hangar bay was supposed to be _secure_.” 

“She is not what she seems.” Ben frowned and stroked his white beard, his eyes unfocusing as they drifted down the corridor. “I don't believe I can let her out of my sight until we determine what she is.” 

“You think she's dangerous?” Han's voice rose in alarm.

“To you, no. To those Luke and I are going to meet on Alderaan, perhaps.” Kenobi seemed to come back to himself. “But you needn't worry about it for now. I'll keep an eye on her.” 

“Right.” Solo didn't sound convinced. He shook his head. “Fine. You do that.” With one last mute, frustrated frown, he waved a disgusted hand at them and retreated to the cockpit. 

“Come, young Luke,” Ben said more warmly, when they were alone. “Let's see about getting you some practice with your new light saber.” 

\- - 

Hours later, Ben lay on his back in the darkness, serene in sleep. Luke sighed softly and pushed up off the thin mattress. He'd been awake for ages, trying not to toss and turn for fear of waking his new Master, but it was clear he wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. Rising as quietly as he could, he pulled his shirt and boots on over the pants he still wore and slipped out into the corridor. 

The cold of space seemed to seep through the _Falcon's_ worn hull in the deep quiet of the ship's night cycle, permeating the halls with invisible frost that nipped at his skin. Glow rods embedded seemingly at random in the walls, ceiling, and along the floor pulsed with just enough dim, blueish light to let him move about safely. Together with the sporadic clunking, whirs and popping sounds inherent to freighter systems – designed for efficiency rather than ambiance – the odd illumination gave the freighter an abandoned, alien feel as he wandered, his mind churning with troubled thoughts.

At one point, Luke crept past the cockpit; Solo was snoring soundly, chin on his chest, boots on the dash. Soon after, he waved halfheartedly when he passed the wookie tinkering in a wall panel in the common room. Eventually, his meandering path took him to the small storage room Senni had claimed as hers. A thin line of warm light glimmered along the seam at the base of the door, and Luke took a chance, tapping gently. 

After a moment the door opened, a cautious-looking Senni on the other side. She was barefoot, stripped down to her leggings and a thin camisole. Strapped to her left wrist was a tooled leather holster cradling a tiny, intricate blaster unlike anything Luke had seen before. The loose garb she'd been draped in earlier had concealed it as neatly as it had hidden the harsh leanness of her figure. She was all sylph-y muscle, backlit by the modest light of one half-power glow rod in the far wall. Not a single extra ounce to spare anywhere. The only softness about her lay in her striking hair, now loosed from its braid and falling in silky waves to her waist.

_ Not desert bred with skin that fair,  _ Luke thought.  _But raised somewhere just as inhospitable in other ways._

“Skywalker.” She gave no indication of being self-conscious under his gaze, side-stepping easily to let him in. She locked the door behind him using an emergency safety mechanism built into the bulkhead beside it, then maneuvered around him to return to a pile of blankets she'd procured from somewhere and layered into a nest of sorts in one corner. Weapons – the ones strapped to her legs in the cantina, he guessed – were arrayed in a semi-circle around it in an ad-hoc defensive perimeter. 

“I'm sorry they gave you a hard time, earlier.” Luke stood awkwardly halfway between the door and Senni's make-shift aerie. 

She settled down, back the wall, and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “Kenobi thinks I'll hurt you.” She tipped her head back and peered up at him seriously. “I won't.” 

“ _I_ know that,” he agreed, quickly. He gave her a half-grin. “Could have handed me over to the Imperials twice already if that's what you were after.” 

She regarded him a minute, then motioned beside her. “You can sit, if you want.” 

Relieved and delighted, Luke leaned over and tugged his boots off. (Aunt Beru had always taught him to respect other people's space, and he didn't want Senni to think he was some kind of uncultured slob just because he'd grown up in the Outer Rim.) Leaving them alongside hers, he carefully stepped over her arsenal and lowered himself to sit beside her. 

“This is comfier than my bunk,” he observed, smiling at her. 

“That why you couldn't sleep?” she asked, tipping her head inquisitively. “Lumpy bunk?”

Luke ducked his head and fidgeted with a wrinkle of the blanket by his knee. “No,” he mumbled. “It wasn't bad, really. I just...”

She waited, silently, but he didn't feel any impatience in her steady regard. “Two days ago I was a moisture farmer,” he shared tentatively. “I had a home and -,” he swallowed against the lump in his throat. “And a family. And -,” he shot a nervous sideways glance at her. “And I didn't appreciate them.” 

“Now they're gone.” It sounded like a guess. 

Luke's eyes dropped and he nodded dully, fresh grief throbbing in his chest. “ Everything's  gone. I thought – I'd hoped – that… that being a Jedi could – oh, I don't know!” He heaved backward, head smacking against the wall harder than he'd meant it to, and stared peevishly at the ceiling. 

“You wanted an anchor.” 

It seemed perfectly reasonable when she said it, and Luke felt a rush of gratitude.  _ She understands.  _

“Kenobi offered you one,” she continued. “But it's not what you expected?” 

Luke shook his head. “He keeps talking about not trusting my eyes. About 'listening to the Force'.” His eyes roamed the pocked ceiling overhead absently as he struggled to put his thoughts to words. A frown creased his forehead as his tone hardened. “ H e  talk s about you like you're a  _ thing.  _ A – a  _ creature,  _ instead of a person.  That's not who I thought he was when I said I wanted to be a Jedi. I  hate  it. It makes me feel...” he trailed off, lost.

“Alone?” Senni suggested, quietly. 

“Yes.” He whispered, dejectedly. He tipped his head back down and a risked a look over at her. Found a melancholy expression on her face. Something about it gave him the oddest feeling that she knew exactly how he felt. “Senni?” 

“What?” 

“Can I kiss you?” 

She nodded shallowly, eyes locked solemnly on his. Slowly, Luke leaned over, watching her eyes slip closed just before he pressed his lips to hers.

Luke had no illusions about his skills as a lover. Between Biggs, Tank and Fixer cornering the market on popularity in the painfully small circle of their peer group and Uncle Owen's fastidious eye watching nearly his every move it had taken herculean effort to get any experience at all. He'd long ago resigned himself to having just enough practice to know his way around bedding a girl, but falling woefully short of being particularly good at it.

But Senni… Senni didn't seem to have gotten that memo. She softened under his gentle kiss like blue-milk butter left in the twin suns. When he pulled back, her eyes were saucer-wide and she ran her tongue along her bottom lip in slightly dazed wonder, as if she could still taste him.

“More.” It came out low and hungry, and her whole body shifted as she turned toward him, leaning in eagerly.

He happily met her halfway, kissing her a little more insistently this time. She returned his enthusiasm clumsily, her hands finding his shoulders, fingers digging in as she sought a deeper taste of him. Luke risked bringing a hand up to push a strand of hair away from her cheek, his fingertips grazing the smooth skin at her temple. She broke the kiss to nuzzle into his hand. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and a look of longing – _want_ so searing it was painful just to see – flashed across her face.

_Is she really so alone that this means that much?_ The thought struck with a pang. Wasn't he, too? 

“Can I… touch you?” he whispered, brushing a kiss against her cheek.

She nodded, turning her face to press her lips to his again,  more demandingly this time .  Luke's hand dropped, clearly telegraphing his intent as it trailed down her neck and over, until he could slip two fingers under the strap of her top. Her breath caught when he tugged it down, her lips parting. The gasp was fast and almost soundless, but it arced through him like an electric shock. His pants were suddenly tormentingly tight and his head rang with an absolutely stunning certainty that this was  _right_ . 

It was dizzyingly disconcerting. _Is that the Force? It has to be the Force._ _It gives signals on this kind of thing? That's weird. Or would it be weird if it didn't? Ben probably doesn't even know – oh, shavit! Ben! Gods, he's not going to be happy about this!)_

Unconcerned by this flurry of chaotic thoughts assaulting his brain, Luke's fingers had continued on their mission to map Senni's creamy skin and he was snapped back to full awareness when she made a sharp noise of dismay. She jerked back, hands fisting at her sides, chest heaving as she gulped for air.

“Senni?” he asked, confused.

“Your Master,” she gritted, dragging her eyes open. “We can't – he'll – _fierfek!_ ”

_Is that all?_ h e thought, relief sweeping through him. “He doesn't have to know,” Luke assured her, quickly. 

She gave him a bizarre look. “He'll feel,” she insisted. “Through your training bond. He'll be down here in -.” 

“My what?” 

“Training bond,” she repeated, wrapping her arms around herself disconsolately. 

Luke blinked at her, baffled. “We... don't have one of those.” 

“Why not?” she cocked her head, brows knitting as she squinted at him, warily. 

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I've never even heard of it.” Fascinating as this was, and as much as he wanted to ask a dozen questions about how _she_ knew about Jedi training,  it was _really_ not what he wanted to be talking about _right now_.  In fact, he didn't want to be _talking_ at all. He reached for her, catching a lock of her hair and twisting it around his fingers as he tried to figure out how to alleviate her anxiety and get them back to where they'd been. “He won't know,” he said again, injecting entirely made-up confidence into his voice. “And if he finds out, I'll -,” Luke's jaw set obstinately. “I won't let him do anything to you for it.” 

She stared at him for a moment, expression slack in disbelief, then burst out laughing. 

Luke knelt up, affronted. “What? What's so funny?” 

“You,” she managed, her laugh fading into a sort of miserable sigh. “Me. This.” She scrubbed at her face with her hands, agitatedly. “Selfish,” she whispered, distantly. “Selfish little gargoyle. I just -.” Her lips pursed and she stared at him, forlornly. 

“Just what?” he asked, bewildered.

“I _want_.” 

Hope surged. “You want me,” Luke clarified. 

“He won't train you,” she shook her head. “If I have you, he'll -.” 

Luke lurched forward recklessly.  He scooped one arm around her waist, dragging her to him. With his other hand he cupped the back of her head, supporting her as he pressed his mouth to hers, hard. She moaned low against him, her hands coming up to clutch at his shoulders, and he took advantage. His tongue darted between her lips. Unpracticed, it was graceless but effective. Senni shoved him, toppling him backward into the puddle of blankets and crawled up his body until she straddled his waist. Her long hair fell in sheets on either side of them as she kissed him desperately, her hands yanking and shoving at his tunic until she'd gotten it open, exposing bare skin. 

Skywalker protested when she broke the kiss, then groaned when she promptly started mouthing her way down his chest.  He buried his hands in her hair, the cool strands a starkly erotic contrast to the heat of her mouth and her hands as she explored him. He sucked in a gasp when she nipped at him, and she went deathly still, eyes darting up to his in minor panic. 

“S'okay,” he shook his head, brushing across her cheek with a thumb encouragingly. “Don't stop.” 

Her eyes held his a moment longer, as if to be really sure. Then her hands were at his pants, fumbling impatiently until she could drag them down. She tossed them aside and  star ed a t his straining erection with a curious, resolute expression. 

“Not like it's putting together a hyperdrive,” she muttered to herself. “Figure it out.”

Luke's eyes rolled straight back into his head when she dropped forward and sucked as much of him as she could in her mouth. Even without her comment, he would have known she had no experience. She fumbled inelegantly through the first few minutes of the effort, her movements and pressure inconsistent and jerky. He didn't care. It was giddily heady to be the focus of her determined enthusiasm, and she was an incredibly fast learner. Every stroke was a little more even, every swirl of her tongue a little closer to the perfect pressure. 

“Senni,” he gasped, tugging at her hair, her uninjured shoulder. “Gods – stop a minute.” 

She pulled back reluctantly, concern and confusion writ large across her flushed face. 

“I'm not -,” he'd have blushed if arousal hadn't already painted his skin as red as hers. “I won't last, and I want – I want to be inside you.” 

She brightened instantly and shifted to the side to strip off her leggings. Then she climbed back on top of him. 

“This too,” Luke caught the bottom hem of her top. “Please?” 

To his delight, she promptly stripped it off, baring herself to his gaze. Then she centered herself, the fingers she used to help position him still slick with saliva from her experiments in combining sucking and stroking him a moment ago. Slowly, carefully, she lowered herself, powerful leg muscles flexing as she  worked herself down onto him. Luke's entire body clenched at the tight, wet heat. 

_Oh, gods. You can't come yet!_ He commanded himself.  _She hasn't – you have to make this good for her, too!_

When she got him fully inside herself, Senni made a surprised sound and faltered, looking down at where they were joined. 

“Okay?” Luke managed to ask, trying not to think about how strangled he sounded. 

“I think…” she whispered, then cleared her throat slightly and tried again. “Think I did it wrong.” She shifted her weight a little and Luke had to tighten every muscle in his body - straight down to his _toes_ – to keep from coming. 

“No,” his hands found her hips and squeezed. “You definitely didn't.” 

“I thought – it's supposed to -.” The bafflement was back on her face. “Isn't it supposed to hurt, the first time? Especially with someone so… big?” 

Luke stopped breathing for second. “This is…? Oh, kriff.” He tried to think of something articulate to say, but all the blood in his body had rushed far, far from his head. 

_Gods she feels so good. She's impressed with my body! Oh, kriffing hells, I'm her first. I've never been anybody's first. It's not supposed to hurt, is it? What in the stars do I know about girls' stuff like this? Seriously, Uncle Owen, “don't even think about it” was **really** not helpful as an insects-and-blossoms talk. She's worried. What do I do?_

Senni broke into the mess of his thoughts as if she'd heard them. “Show me what to do,” she commanded. “How to make it good.” 

Luke felt his heart turn into a sloppy puddle in his chest and squeezed her hips again. “It's already good, baby.” 

She gave an impatient snort and pursed her lips at him reprovingly. “I'm supposed to be moving – I know that much. Show me how.” 

An affectionate chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Right. Okay. Um...” Luke had only ever had a girl ride him  (not very well, at that)  once before, so he was a bit fuzzy on the best logistics of the position.  B ut he tried to picture in his head the way her body had rocked on his. How he could move his hands to try to communicate that motion to Senni. 

“Oh!” 

He blinked, coming back to the moment to find her looking inexplicably pleased. He didn't think he'd actually exerted any pressure, but a second later she was moving. Unlike her earlier stiltedness, everything about the way she undulated on him now was fluid and easy.  _Like a dance_ , Luke thought,  dreamily , his entire body tightening as the fresh friction ratcheted up his already asphyxiating pleasure. 

Then all coherence evaporated as Senni's inner walls clamped down, flinging him far over the precipice of pleasure. A sheet of glittering stars washed out his vision and every nerve ending in his body tingled, alight with bliss. He drifted, eventually sinking back into the languid ease of his well-sated body. Senni was a warm weight on his chest, her knees still locked tight at his sides. A faint tremor went through her and Luke dragged heavy-lidded eyes open in a series of laborious blinks. 

When his sight finally cleared, he found two hazy jade eyes staring at him with dumbstruck reverence. 

“That,” he said thickly, hauling a languorous hand up to push back her tousled hair, “was astral.” 

She nodded against him, apparently not up to speaking. Luke smiled, smug satisfaction lodging in between his ribs as his eyes drifted shut again. 

“Skywalker?” When she eventually spoke, Senni's voice was muffled, her cheek pressed against his chest.

“Hmm?”

“Can we… do this again?”

“Gonna need a minute,” he mumbled, his fingertips rubbing slow lines across her shoulder blade.

“Later,” she clarified.

The hope in her voice struck something tender in him, and roused protective instincts Luke didn't know he had. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Senni? Can I stay? Sleep a little, here, I mean?”

“Kenobi,” she reminded him.

“I'll go before he wakes up,” he promised. “Please?”

“Only if you give me some blankets.”

Luke laughed, heard her grumble as the movement dislodged her from her comfortable spot on his chest. Shifting sideways, he took her with him. A little squirming later, they were twined together like vine snakes, burrowed in the pile of blankets. The cold emptiness of space and the chaos of their lives forgotten in their warm, shared cocoon, they slept.

\- -

“What's going on?” Senni braced herself on the door frame of the _Falcon's_ cockpit as another tug of the tractor beam jostled the ship.

Luke hadn't seen her since early that morning, when he'd grudgingly disentangled himself from her and dragged his clothing on. She'd returned his parting kiss eagerly, and there'd been comfort in knowing that his warmth lingered in the blankets she remained snuggled in while he trudged back to his assigned room and snuck back into his bed before Ben awoke. He didn't know what could have given him away, and certainly Ben hadn't said anything about it directly, but he also hadn't let Luke out of his sight all day. Senni, for her part, had stayed scarce. Until now.

“Space station,” Han snapped over his shoulder. “Big one. Where Alderaan was supposed to be – and we're getting pulled into it.”

“What do you mean where Alderaan was _supposed_ to be?” Senni shoved forward, ducking behind Luke to get at the wide front window, carefully keeping his body between her own and Kenobi. 

“It's gone,” Solo barked, irritably. “Just this asteroid field – doesn't show up on any of the maps.” 

The wookie harned, unhappily. 

“You said it, Chewie,” Han groused. “We don't get outta here, we're gonna be off the maps, too. Permanently.” 

“Chizk!” Senni swore and jerked herself back from the viewport. She'd gone starkly pale, and one of her hands pressed hard against her stomach as if she felt sick. 

Luke felt Ben's attention like a physical weight and tore his eyes off Senni to see his Master regarding her, brow furrowed and eyes sharp. 

“Chewie, see if you can -.” Han started.  


“There are alternatives to fighting,” Ben interrupted, his tone quiet but commanding. “I suggest we use them.” 

\- - 

“Skywalker.” 

Sitting on the edge of the smuggling compartment, half a second from dropping in, Luke looked up. Senni leaned over him, one hand reaching out to grab his. He felt something cold and heavy pressed into his palm and looked down. 

_ A blaster?!  _ He looked back up into her grim face. 

“Whatever happens – whatever you have to do,” she ordered, her voice low and deadly serious, “don't let them take you alive. Promise me.” 

“Hurry up, Kid,” Solo snapped from the head of the compartment. 

The ship shivered underneath them as they crossed the magnetic barrier of the station's hangar. Fear lanced through Luke's heart – they were inside that colossal station, now. There was no escaping without going deeper into the belly of the beast, first. 

“I promise.” 

\- - 

“Ben?” Luke stopped dead in his tracks, only half aware of the Princess and Solo rushing past him in their continued flight toward the _Falcon_ , and their only hope of escape.

At the far end of the cavernous hangar, past the vast open slot in the floor for the cargo elevator that rotated ships between the maintenance decks and the launching level, his Master was engaged in a light saber battle with an enormous black-clad monster. 

In between the swirling of their cloaks and the flashing lights of their clashing weapons, he could just make out Senni behind them, flanked by a squad of stormtroopers. 

_This can't be happening._ Luke's heart pounded.  _He can't have gotten caught – he's a Jedi! I should be the one with him, not her!_

He'd chafed at being left with Han in the control room to hide. (Before they'd discovered the beauitiful Princess from the message was on board and agreed that saving her – and getting the reward, for Han – overrode any obligation they had to obeying the old Jedi's orders.) That Ben had insisted that Senni accompany him had only made everything worse. She hadn't wanted to – that had been blatantly clear. But with the alternative being  _Luke_ going deep into the bowels of that station, she'd gritted her teeth and acquiesced, preferring, it seemed, to keep him safe at any cost. 

Now she was trapped, and he was too far away to help her. As is he could feel his student's presence, Ben turned his head to look directly at Luke. He smiled, beatifically, and lifted his light saber in an elegant, formal salute.

The red blade sliced through him and he vanished, cloak billowing and floating to the ground, empty.

“Nooo!” Luke knew the scream that rang in his ears to be his own, but it sounded foreign to his ears. The whole world seemed to warp, reality bending around him.

The black-armored monster turned in his direction, saber slashing to his side and stalked toward the hanger. Luke watched in a sort of blurrily detached surrealism as Senni lunged at one of the stormtroopers beside her, snatching a blaster rifle, and sprinted forward. She was a streak of color – red gold hair and creamy linen – against the dull Imperial grey of the station and the solid black of the creature that could only be Darth Vader.

And then Vader lifted a hand. He clenched it into a gloved fist and snapped it sideways.

Senni was thrown off her feet, launched laterally into the frame of the massive blast doors that separated the hangar from the corridor. She went limp, her body dropping, leaden, to the floor. Vader ignored her, his cape sweeping over her carelessly as he marched toward the _Falcon,_ white-armored troopers on his heels.

“Luke! Luke!” Leia's frantic voice pierced Luke's consciousness, her small, fierce hands plucking at him, trying to haul him bodily up the ramp.

_Run Luke._

_Don't let them take you alive – promise me._

Fueled by adrenaline and fury, Luke spun on his heel, caught Leia, and hurtled up the _Falcon's_ ramp.

\- -

“Hey, Kid. Wondered where you'd gotten off to.” Solo's voice lost it's jocund tone and turned worried. “You all right?”

Luke didn't lift his head off the dejarik table. “I killed her.”

“What? Killed who?”

“Senni,” he hiccuped. “She was on the Death Star, and _I blew it up_.”

“Oh, hell.”

Luke heard Han slouch into the bench seat opposite him. The shifting of weight and the creak of the ancient material the seat was upholstered with as his new friend tried to think of something to say. “I didn't even _think_ about it,” he choked, finally lifting his aching head. “How could I _forget_ , Han?”

That wasn't right, he knew. He hadn't _forgotten_. He'd blasted the TIE fighters that had trailed them after the Death Star with righteous fury over Ben _and_ Senni. He'd climbed into the x-wing they'd pointed him toward determined not to lose anyone or anything else to those damn Imperial bastards. He'd just – it had all happened _so fast_. It felt like he'd barely taken a breath between escape and outfitting and flying and – and then it was _over_. He'd been landing in the hangar, the need to get Artoo to help _urgent,_ and then Leia had been flying at him, laughing. There'd been cheering, and Han had come, and –.

And then someone had handed him a Starshine. It had been his fifth drink. Or maybe his sixth. He hadn't been counting, just swept along on the celebratory tide that engulfed the base like a tidal wave. The burn hit his tongue and he'd dissociated for a long, frightening moment. Everything around him had gone indistinct, only the sharp burn of the alcohol on his tongue and the memory of a pair of jade eyes starting at him with shocking intensity clear in his mind.

It had barreled into him like a rabid dewback – the realization of what he'd done. He'd staggered, only dimly aware of where he was going, of the wild joy of the strangers around him, slapping his back and shouting praise and victory slogans, as he'd fled. When the people and lights and drinks receded enough to slow his steps, he'd found himself once again at the ramp of the _Falcon_. He didn't speak wookie, but even in his agony Chewie's kind wave had been easy to interpret. He'd made it as far as the common room before he gave out, landing slumped over the gaming table, heartbroken and bereft.

“Listen, Kid – Luke,” Han said, leaning forward, his face grim. “Don't take this the wrong way, but it's for the best this way.”

Luke felt his eyes widen, bloodshot and stinging, and opened his mouth to retort, but Han cut him off.

“Hear me out,” he insisted, holding up his hands placatingly. “They knew she was with us – with the Old Man, right? Leia said -,” he hesitated, then plowed on. “She told me Kiffu hit the wall pretty damn hard. Good chance she broke her neck on impact.”

Luke's heart twisted and fresh tears welled up behind his eyes as the graphic memory replayed in his mind.

“So maybe,” Han continued, “she was already dead before you took that thing out. If she wasn't -.” He set his jaw. “She was right at that Vader guy's feet, Kid. If she woke up at all, she came to in a cell like the one we pulled Leia out of. They'd've been trying to get information out her.” Han blew out a breath and raked a hand through his hair, sitting back hard. “What they'd have been doing - death was a mercy, Kid.”

Luke's mind rebelled, refusing to imagine Senni's implacably lean form being brutalized by Imperial interrogation droids. By _Vader_.

_She broke her neck,_ he thought, blearily.  _Ben took her with him and left her in Vader's hands to die._

He didn't understand. None of it made any sense. Nothing that had happened to him in the last  _week_ made any sense. He shook his head and the world wobbled around him. 

“You should get some sleep.” Han's voice sounded tired, but unexpectedly gentle. “Things'll look different in the morning. You'll see.” 

“Don't have a room,” Luke mumbled, rubbing his gritty eyes with a hand. There hadn't been time earlier – no time for anything except handing off the plans and getting pointed to a ship. He didn't even know if he was officially considered part of the Rebellion, yet. Did he have a rank? Was he supposed to be reporting to someone? All he knew was that his head ached and his heart was bleeding when he hadn't thought there was any blood left to draw. 

“May as well sleep here,” Solo was saying. “Least for tonight. Go on – get in yer bunk. I'll cover for you if anybody asks.” 

Luke thought he might have nodded. Was vaguely conscious of lurching up and away from the table. But when his trudging feet came to a stop, it wasn't at the room he'd shared with Ben. His hand hovered over the control pad a long, painful minute before he pressed the button and staggered inside. He didn't take off his boots – there wasn't anyone left to show respect to. 

He didn't so much kneel or lay down as pitch to his knees and then collapse, face-first, into the lagoon of blankets. They still smelled like her. Like  _them_ . 

Luke buried his face in the only remaining trace he had of Senni and comfort, and wept himself to sleep.

 


	3. Cyar'ika

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who isn't dead?

_Hoth. Seven months post Yavin._

Despite more than half a year in service as the primary hub of the Rebellion's main force, Echo Base remained little more than a winding network of frozen tunnels hollowed out of the top layers of the icy planet's permafrost crust. Here and there a spacious, pre-existing cavern had been tapped for use as a hangar, command center, or other central gathering point. The no-nonsense, high-traffic corridors connecting these critical locations had been carved deep and wide to accommodate the mass flow of personnel and supplies. The rest of the Base's passages, however, were severely narrower and meandered along the natural paths of least resistance, creating a complex and crowded maze of nearly identical doors set deep in frosty walls, distinguishable only by the codes stenciled on their metal nameplates.

Luke's right shoulder brushed the wall every few steps, shaving a fresh dusting of sparkling snow crystals onto his tan, thickly padded uniform jacket. Endless repetitions of this route, between the pilots' lounge and the spartan quarters he shared with Wedge, had burned the steps so deeply into his muscle memory that he no longer had to look where he was going. He took advantage of that to keep reading the data pad in his hand as he trekked along, periodically flattening himself to the wall to make room for other personnel traveling in small, gossipy knots or carrying bulky extreme-cold-weather-gear.

He'd have liked to have stayed and watched the impromptu sabacc tournament Wes and Hobbie were hosting in the lounge, but a string of unexpected maintenance issues on his x-wing and a last-minute plea for assistance from Leia in dealing with an electrical mess caused by one of the ice creatures that had managed to barge its way in through an outer wall had put him two days behind schedule on his messages and reports.

Wedge had been covering for him, making sure the truly essential stuff got done, but Luke needed to catch up – sooner rather than later. So he'd stayed long enough to make sure he was seen, then signaled to Wedge and quietly snuck out. Antilles had had a lap full of the blonde from Supply, suggesting he was unlikely to be back to their shared quarters that night. Which was probably just as well. If the endlessly scrolling list of messages on his screen was anything to go by, Luke wasn't even going to get halfway through his to-do list before calling it a night, let alone have time to be decent company.

Somehow, when he'd dreamed of running away to join the fight against the Empire he'd never imaged there'd be so much flimsey-work involved.

_Serves you right for lettin'em make you an officer,_ Han had smirked last time he'd complained. Luke shook his head, a small smile quirking at the edges of his mouth at the thought of his friend.  The ex-smuggler seemed to spend half his time these days carrying  on epic screaming matches with Leia in the halls.  He spent the  _other_ half of his time making himself indispensable by mysteriously procuring obscure or high-value supplies that no one else could seem to get hold of  to save their lives. It drove  the Princess to distraction and kept Rogue Squadron knee-deep in creative betting pools so, more often than not, Luke was inclined to just sit back and enjoy the show. 

_He's due back tonight,_ Luke remembered.  _I'll have to go find him in the morning – see how the run went._

Reaching his door, he stopped and – still without looking up from his pad – punched in the code. As had become habit, he waited ten seconds for the small flurry of ice crystals disturbed by the motion of the door opening to dissipate, then stepped inside. The door whisked shut with a faint hiss.

Half a second later, he was slammed back into it, his back impacting with a muffled but solid _thump_. The data pad flew out of his hold, skittering under Wedge's bunk somewhere. His head snapped up in surprise and confusion just in time for a small body to plaster itself tenaciously against him. A warm mouth to fused onto his.

Luke gave a rather ignominious yelp and scrabbled to find and grip his assailant's shoulders, shoving them backward. For a second he simply gaped, a staticky disconnect spitting and sparking between his eyes and his brain. He knew that face – dreamed of it, constantly.

“Senni?”

She regarded him irritably, clearly nonplussed by either his stunned gawping or being held at arm's length. “Skywalker.”

Elation – blinding as a supernova – surged through him. Luke hauled her back against him, laughter catching like a sob in his throat as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. “You're alive! 

You're  _alive_ !” 

“Of course I am.” 

She squirmed in his arms, tipping her face so she could reclaim his mouth hungrily. He returned the kisses ardently, his arms sliding lower around her until he found the bottom of her jacket. His hands slid under it, tugging at her thin top, seeking skin. That he found it under only one layer of fabric jolted him out of his rapture and he pushed her back again. Senni made a sharp noise of frustration, fisting her hands in the puffy sleeves of his jacket and glaring virbo-shivs at him. 

“What are you doing here?” Luke's mind was racing, a dozen questions bubbling up at once as he skimmed a gaze down her body. She was appallingly under-dressed for Hoth's frigid temperatures and there were shadows under her eyes, dark against the almost translucent pallor of her skin. “How did you _get_ here? Where have you -.”

“ _Skywalker._ ” She cut him off with a growl. “I didn't come for an inquisition. I _want_ you.” 

“But you were _dead_. You can't just turn up out of the black and expect me not to -.”

Senni lurched out of his hold, leaving his hands starkly empty in a way that unexpectedly made his heart race. Spinning around, she snatched up a small pack from the floor. “Stupid,” she hissed, starting to shoulder past him. “ _Stupid_ idea. _Cnous oblivyn ke'dem.”_

“Hey! Whoa! Where're you going?!” Luke grabbed at her, then ducked sharply as she snapped an elbow toward his head. “ _Hey!_ ”

Darting back up, Luke caught her in both hands, halfway between hips and shoulders, and _shoved_. It was Senni's turn to hit the wall – distinctly harder than he had intended - and she dropped the satchel, sucking in a harsh breath. The bones of her ribs felt startlingly pronounced against Luke's palms, even through her jacket, and his heart squeezed. _What happened to you, baby?_

Senni's eyes drifted out of focus a moment before they cleared and landed heavily on him. “I shouldn't have come.”

Anguish tore at Luke. This wasn't what he wanted – this fractiousness between them. But he couldn't just ignore the slew of questions crowding in. He _couldn't_.

Un anticipated , a lesson from one of the leadership classes all Alliance officers were required to take prodded the back of his mind.  _Let the other person know you hear them. Try to find a way to validate where they are so they can be open to hearing you._ His  mouth opened,  his body falling in line before his brain had finished working through a plan. 

“You came for me.” Luke left one hand on her side, lifted the other to rub steadyingly at her shoulder. “ _To_ me. For more. Of what we had on the _Falcon_.”

She nodded shallowly, the shift in light making the circles under her eyes darken to a bruised purple shade.

“That's not a mistake.” Luke drifted his lips over her temple. She didn't relax, but she leaned into the grazing touch as if drawn by an inexorable force. He murmured softly, “I've missed you.”

“I can't -.” Senni tipped her head back when he trailed kisses over her ear and down her neck, her eyes falling shut. One hand fisted white-knuckled into his coat. “Tell you... everything you want. I _can't._ ”

Luke nuzzled aside the fabric at the base of her throat to press his lips to the silky skin there. She made a quiet, pained sound as he slid an arm around her back, drawing her in closer still. He sucked lightly at a patch of skin just above the neckline of her top.

“Just a little, then,” he negotiated, slipping his right hand under the hem of her top and stroking her side in easy, languid passes. “Three questions.”

“This first,” she gasped, arching into his touch.

“Yes,” Luke agreed quickly, pulling his hand free to unfasten her jacket and push it off her shoulders. He paused, looking down at her when she put a staying hand to his chest.

“What if it's something I can't answer?” she asked, low and solemn.

“Then I get to ask another. Until we find something you can tell me.” He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “Please?”

They stayed that way for a moment, silent and pressed together while she fought some internal battle he didn't understand. Then Luke felt her nod.

“Three questions,” she whispered, finally. She shivered violently. “After.”

“After.” Luke grinned and nodded, joy flaring. “Come on, let's get you under some covers before you freeze.”

The accord broke the tension and her hands were back on him, urgent and demanding. Luke was more careful handling her; she felt delicate under his touch, as if she'd gone hollow-boned as a Devlikk. Impatient with his caution – or perhaps just too cold to abide by the extra seconds it cost – Senni swatted his hands away and stripped herself before diving under the thick, coarse blankets of his bunk. Bemused, Luke made short work of his own more abundant layers and left them in a pile beside hers on the floor. He slid hurriedly under the covers beside her and nudged her onto her back, shifting until he lay over her. Her legs parted, inviting him to settle between them and he did, gladly, careful to keep his weight supported on his forearms. Senni's fingers splayed across his back as she tugged him more heavily down onto her, then gave a happy sigh as his mouth found hers again. 

L uke felt as if the rest of the galaxy had fallen away, faded to a distant memory.  He was aware only of the steadily rising warmth of his modest bunk, the desire pulsing  hot and thick  through his veins, and Senni – his Senni, magically returned to him, and  _ eager _ .  Joining the Rebellion had extravagantly expanded  hi s opportunities to improve his skills in bed, and  Luke set about  single-mindedly applying what he'd learned, determined to demonstrate just how grateful he was that she'd found her way back to him.

The open-mouthed kisses he plied her with were lusty and possessive and, to his delight, she dissolved into them with the same sort of awed wonder as before. When they were both panting for breath he ducked under the covers, brushing a kiss across her collarbone before dipping his head to her breasts. She gave a small cry when he caught a rosy, peaked nipple between his teeth and tugged lightly. Her hands flew to either side of his face and she arched into him as he suckled lightly where he'd nipped. The low, involuntary sounds his touch evoked from her were base and carnal and he groaned against her. Every inch of his skin felt too hot and too tight as he fought his own need for release to keep his focus on her pleasure. When he relinquished one breast to lavish similar attention on the other, she grasped his shoulders, trying to pull him up. 

“Inside me,” she demanded raggedly. “Now.” 

He dragged his lips off her just long enough to protest, “not ready.” But when he slipped a hand down to cup between her legs, slickness coated his fingers. She was  _ very _ ready. And as desperately as he wanted to take his time with her, his own arousal had  escalated to  a point  approaching pain. 

“Kriffing hell.” Luke abandoned his efforts at restraint, promising himself he'd do better next time. He shifted, lining himself up and pushed inside her. “Gods, Senni -.” 

Her legs curled around his and her arms wrapped around his shoulders. “More.” 

Propping himself on one arm, he slid his left hand under her hip,  bracing her . Then he set a rough pace, taking her deep and fast. In what little room she had to move, she tried to match him, her hips snapping to meet his, insistent and needy.  Luke pushed his hand further under her, angling her up a little until he was grinding against just the right spot with every thrust. Senni muffled a wail against his shoulder, her entire body clenching around his, and he was lost. Luke gasped her name as his spine locked and he emptied himself inside her. Then he collapsed on top of her, muscles shaking from the power of his release. 

It… wasn't usually like that. The awareness was clouded by the fog of post-coital bliss he was drifting in, but some corner of his mind was muddily aware that being with Senni was different.  Unique. He usually had more control – a lot more. Release was always enjoyable, but never quite so  _ zealous _ . Something about her made the whole of the experience more intense, by an order of magnitude. 

He was drawn from his drifting and his thoughts by her voice.  “Skywalker?”

She sounded oddly tentative, and a cold wash of concern pulled him out of his cloud. He tried to speak, but his still heavily languid body managed only,  “Hmmm?” 

“Is there… do you have someone else, now?”

“What?” _Damn._ Startled, and having finally found his voice, the question came out more severely than he'd meant. Luke brought his head up, blinking at her in confusion. “Sorry. What?”

“You've more experience,” she said, gravely, meeting his eyes. “At this. Are you... with someone?”

“No!” Luke shook his head, firmly. “No, I would never – if - I wouldn't have -.”

She nodded, understanding, and regarded him quietly. And, he thought, with relief.

“Did you -.” Luke stopped. The rules about this sort of thing could be tricky and, anyway, he was pretty sure he knew the answer already. Fully returned to the keen edge of larger reality, he was struck by the worry that he might accidentally waste one of his three precious questions. “Nevermind.” Aware now that he was laying fully on top of her, Luke eased gently out of her. Settling on his side, he tucked her against him, as much out of desire to hold her as a vague fear that the wrong questions might cause her to bolt.

“No,” she answered, anyway. “I didn't. I won't. Just you.” Senni snuggled into him a little more deeply, ducking her head under his chin. Luke could feel the tension creep into her shoulders as he stroked his fingers over them, and her voice was rough when she added, “I'll hold up my end of the bargain. What's your first question?”

Luke gently combed his fingers through her hair, considering. There was so much he wanted to know, but she was clearly terrified of something. He had no way of knowing what, though, and so no idea how to gauge what might be safe ground and what might send her fleeing from his arms to be completely lost to him again.

_Search your feelings._ Ben's words came back to him, as they  often did when he was floundering. Without much hope of success, Luke let his mind drift, trusting the same instinct that surfaced every time he tried this to take his thoughts and intuition where they needed to go. 

“What were you doing on Tatooine?” Luke felt his brow furrow when the words came out of his mouth. _That_ was the question the Force thought would be most helpful right now? Seriously? To his surprise, Senni didn't answer immediately. If she had to weigh her answer, maybe the Force was onto something after all.

After a minute, she said calmly, “Poking around in the Hutt's vault.”

Luke craned his neck, staring down at the top of her head in astonishment. “What?!”

“The Hutt,” she repeated, bluntly. “Jabba. He has a vault.”

“I _know_ that,” Luke spluttered. “But he doesn't just let people in it! His security measures are -.”

“Not much good against me,” Senni interrupted, her tone a bit smug. “He never even knew I was there.” She scoffed. “Indolent slug.” She turned her head up to look at him with the hint of a smile. “Finding you, though...” she shook her head and tipped her head back down to press a kiss to his chest. “Much better than anything in the vault.”

Luke felt a happy buzz at her words, as if he'd had too much to drink. The sensation grew when she settled back down against his chest and he realized that the tension in her back had eased noticeably.

“Next question?”

“Hmm…” Luke leaned into the Force again. _Please give me something else good. I don't want to scare her away._ “Does your identi-tab still say Senni on it?”

Again, a pause. Then, “The Senni tab is still viable, but I don't need an identi-tab right now.”

“Can I ask you something that doesn't count as one of my three questions?”

She poked him, impudently. “You just did.”

Luke darted a hand down to catch the offending finger and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss. “Besides that,” he clarified, making a face at her.

“You can try,” she allowed, suspiciously.

“Do you want me to call you something else, now?”

She scowled at him. “If you're trying to -,” she started, sharply.

“No!” Luke cut her off. “I mean, yes, of course I'd like to know your real name, but -.” He stopped, trying to find the right words. “That's not what I meant. I just… it sounds like you were using Senni as an alias, like Han does when he's flying the _Falcon_ under false transponder codes. I don't want to call you some throw-away name if there's something you'd like better. A – a nickname, or something, maybe?”

She blinked, her angry expression twisting into something that made him taste bitterness on his tongue, and then lapsed into sadness for a fleeting second. “All my names are throw-away names,” she told him, wistfully. Then added more darkly, “And I don't have a single nickname I ever want to hear from you.” She shook her head, as if to shake off bad memories. “Call me whatever you want. It doesn't matter.”

“It does to me,” Luke reproved. He rolled them over and slid a few inches down the bed, inadvertently dragging the blankets with him.

Senni squeaked in protest and yanked the covers back up, over his head and up to her chin. “Skywalker, it's _cold_!” She tucked her arm back under the blankets, grousing, “why did you pick  such an awful planet?” 

“ _I_ didn't pick it,” he laughed, swiping his tongue playfully over the tip of her right breast. It was evidently still quite sensitive from his earlier attention, and he thoroughly enjoyed the way she writhed when he did it again, then huntangled a hand from underneath her to knead her other breast. “Besides,  it's not like we're here on vacation. We're hiding from the Empire.” 

“ Yeah, well, good job,” she griped. “If anybody but Death Squadron finds you, they'll work damn hard to pretend they didn't just so they don't have to come here and dig you out of this Force-forsaken hell-hole.” 

Some part of Luke's mind – one he wasn't particularly interested in paying attention to at the moment, considering the sensual promise in the way Senni's body moved against his own, and the flaring of fresh desire of his own – made note of the familiarity with which she referenced Vader's infamous Death Squadron.

“Stop changing the subject,” he returned, mock crossly. “And tell me the most beautiful nickname you've ever heard anyone called.”

“What's wrong with the prettiest thing _you've_ ever heard anyone called?” she retorted.

“Farmboy,” he reminded her, trailing kisses across her skin. The hand not on her breast slipped down to tease between her legs, earning him a wanton whimper. “Believe it or not, your average moisture farmer doesn't have a poetic bone in his body. You, though...” Luke sucked a soft, lingering kiss at her collarbone in calculated distraction and adjusted his hips – if she kept rubbing against his fully revived erection like that, he wasn't going to last. _Again_ _._ “I bet you've heard _wonderful_ things.”

Senni gave a whine that went straight to Luke's groin, and he slipped a finger past her folds, dipping it inside her.

“ _Skywalker -.”_

She twisted  beneath him, but he leaned his weight on her, pinning her in place  and adding a second finger.  “Something pretty,” he prompted,  again. 

“Cyar'ika,” Senni whispered. Then her entire body went taut, if she couldn't believe what she'd said.

Luke instinctively shifted up, his hand leaving her breast to wriggle it's way out of the blankets and cradle the back of her head. “Cyar'ika,” he repeated, murmuring it in her ear, soft and indulgent. “My cyar'ika.”

“You shouldn't -.” She broke off with a throaty cry when he twisted his fingers inside her and swept his thumb up over the swollen little bud hidden in her folds.

“Last question, cyar'ika,” Luke pressed his lips close to her ear and dropping his voice. He watched her face screw up in a heartbreaking jumble of anxiety and pleasure, her eyes squeezing tightly shut and her hands fisting in the sheets as his fingers upped their relentless pace between her legs. She was trembling, head to toe, when he asked, “Will you stay with me?”

Her next breath was a sob. “I _can't.”_ Her eyes opened, wild and distraught. ““I _can't.”_

Luke's heart ached. “Will you come back, then? Can you do that?”

“Have to...” she swallowed. The next words held the weight of a vow in the Force. “Have to kill me to keep me away.”

“Cyar'ika.” Luke propped a hand on either side of her head and hitched himself back up, covering her with his body as if he could protect her from whatever horrible thing kept her from staying. She tilted her hips up in a silent plea and he slid smoothly inside of her. He repeated the foreign endearment she'd chosen with every thrust, until she was shuddering under him, screaming his name as she came apart. Again, she took him with her, wrecking them both on the shores of euphoria and exhaustion. In the aftermath, like she had the first time they'd been together, Senni coiled herself around Luke, his arms winding themselves around her protectively, and they slept.


	4. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We pick up exactly where we left off.

She slipped from his grasp like water and, if not for the accompanying sound of an unfamiliar chime stabbing through the quiet, Luke might very well have slept through it and woken to an empty room. He dragged one eye open to see the porcelain curve of Senni's back as she crouched over her discarded pack, tapping quickly at a data pad retrieved from its pockets. She cursed, then tossed it back in the bag and scrambled for her clothing.

“Senni?” Luke yawned and rolled onto his side to face her.

“I have to go.” The words were muffled as she leaned over, thrusting a foot into a boot.

“What?” He sat up, automatically pulling the blankets up around him in defense against the biting cold that darted in to nip at his skin.

“My ride is leaving, I have to go.” She shrugged on her jacket and turned back to the bed. Luke tipped his head up at her and blinked in dismay, still struggling against the languor of good sex and deep sleep. Senni leaned over and pressed a quick, firm kiss to his lips. “See you soon.”

Then she was gone.

\- -

_Three Weeks Later_

Luke leaned over, squinting at the long sequence of numbers stenciled on the side of the plastisteel shipping crate. He checked it against the list on the pad in his hand, then straightened, stifling a groan. Bi-monthly physical inventory might be a necessity – one the Alliance only trusted to officers – but it was a long and tedious process. It didn't help that he'd drawn one of the least desirable lots this round; the tiny, out-of-the-way storage room he'd been sent to was considered a one-person job, so he didn't have another officer to commiserate with and it was unlikely anyone would even wander by.

It should have been a good opportunity to think, except that all he could think about was Senni. She'd promised to come back and he didn't have any reason to doubt her. She _had_ already found her way back to him once, after all. But as the days stretched on, full of numbingly repetitive routines and devoid of even the slightest hint of her return, it was easy to start doubting himself. To wonder if he'd dreamed her – hallucinated her. He sighed again. Checked the box on the data pad. Turned around to start the next column.

And nearly had a heart attack.

She was half a step behind him and reached out the instant he turned to face her. Grasping his shoulders, she boosted herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist. Luke dropped the data pad, his heart soaring as he threw his arms around her and caught her weight. She was better dressed for the weather this time in a sleek ash-gray snowsuit and thick, padded boots. Her mouth descended on his and he kissed her fervently.

“Cyar'ika,” he managed against her lips. “I was -.”

She pulled back enough to fix him with a stern look and interrupted demandingly, “shut up and kriff me.”

Luke got out half a laugh before their tongues were tangling again and there wasn't any more air. “Here?” he gasped out a moment later.

“Yes. _Now._ ”

 _Well, if that's how she wants it…_ Luke walked forward until Senni's back hit a wall. He shifted his grip, sliding her to her feet, then dropped his hands to tug open her pants, kissing her all the while. She hummed in approval, reaching down to shimmy the fabric past her hips and freeing his hands to unfasten his own clothing. The feel of her – so impatient and wanting that she all but devoured him – had him flushed and hard already. The icy cold of the outer air against his swollen cock made him flinch, but he had no intention of being exposed to it for long. Grasping her shoulder, he spun her around.

Senni caught on quickly, bracing herself against the wall and leaning forward slightly to give him a better angle. She was no sooner in position than he was pressing his body against her back, working his stiff length into her sweet, wet heat. He grunted at the pleasure of it when he sank all the way home inside her.

“Cyar'ika.” He hooked one arm around her waist and slid the other up her outstretched arm, then gave a disgruntled yelp when his fingers moved to curve around hers and he got a handful of icy snowflakes. “Force!”

Hastily, he wiped his hand on his jacket, trying to brush away the thorny rime. Tightening his hold around her waist, he fished in his pockets, producing two fat, Alliance-issue gloves. They weren't much to look at, stained from lugging tools around and starting to be worn in places, but they would do. “Put these on.”

Senni shot an impudent smirk over her shoulder. “Is this some kind of Rebel fetish, Farmboy?” Her gaze flicked to the gloves, then back to his face. “It is, isn't it? Explains choosing this Force-forsaken planet, I suppose...”

Luke snorted and plucked one of her hands from where it was half-buried in the crust of the wall, fussily rubbing snow off the reddened skin and then tugging the glove over her fingers. “Cute,” he huffed, hastily repeating the treatment on the other hand before pressing both her hands back, palms flat, against the wall. He leaned in, hands falling to grip her hips, mouth so close to her ear that his low growl made her shiver. “I'm going to kriff you until you can't stand up. I don't want to have to stop halfway through because of frostbitten fingers.” To emphasize his point, Luke pulled almost entirely out of her, then thrust back in – _hard_.

To his astonished delight, Senni purred. Actually, indisputably _purred_. Her face turned toward the wall and she pushed against it, head dipping as she pressing herself back into him and rocked her hips, grinding in unmistakable encouragement.

 _Gods. How is she mine?_ Luke marveled as his left hand retraced its path up her arm, his palm splaying flat on the back of the oversized glove, securing her grip on the wall. His right hand curved down until the heel of his hand was braced on her pelvic bone and he could just brush a fingertip over the engorged little jewel hidden above where he was buried in her. He started thrusting at a steady, even pace, stroking deep and firmly but not too fast, dragging out the sensations as he sheathed himself in her over and over. His fingers kept busy, too, tapping and fluttering in feathery little touches that made his lover alternate between that delicious purring and shrill, desperate little keening noises.

Senni writhed against him, undulating with fluid grace as she alternated between grinding forward onto his soaked, relentless fingertips and snapping her hips back to meet his, driving every thrust to its fullest depth. Luke pressed his cheek to hers, relishing the heat that poured off her skin and the innocent way she turned into the touch, like a pitten nuzzling a proffered hand. It was at stark odds with the licentious sounds pouring out of her and the wicked gyration of her hips - and impossibly endearing.

“Missed you,” he gasped, nipping hungry kisses at the sensitive underside of her jaw as she tilted her head back against his shoulder. Whatever she'd meant to say in reply came out incoherent and jumbled as he flicked the pad of a finger just right and sent her careening over the edge.

Luke tried – _really_ tried, this time – not to let himself be swept away by the feel of her velvety inner walls clinching around him, the shriek as she climaxed. Tried to keep an iron grip on his control, in hopes that he'd be able to keep going, explore the tantalizing question of how many times in a row he could make her come on him. It didn't work.

Two heartbeats later he was following her, the entire world blurring away as his body stiffened, the very pulse in his veins feeling like it flowed out of him and into his cyar'ika in a throbbing, breath-stealing moment outside of time.

When he swam groggily back to himself, he grimaced at the reawakened awareness of the cold against his exposed skin. Re-centering his weight on slightly unsteady feet, he carefully (and a bit reluctantly) extricated himself from Senni, noting with satisfaction that she seemed as wobbly as he was when she shifted sideways, leaning a shoulder against the wall while she righted her clothing. When he looked up from finishing sorting his own, she was smiling at him with an unfamiliar, indulgent softness.

“Hi.”

“Welcome back.” Luke chuckled and leaned in, cupping her cheek with one hand and kissing her lightly. “Is it going to be like this every time?” He teased.

“Yes,” she answered, simply. She tipped her head at him. “Do you want to ask me questions, now?”

“Later,” he answered, regretfully. “I have to finish this,” he retrieved the discarded data pad, “and get it turned in soon or someone will come looking for me.” He had no idea how he'd explain her... and even less desire to share their precious time together finding out exactly how much of a mess any such attempt would be.

“I'll help.” Senni stripped off the borrowed gloves and stepped forward to stuff them back in his pockets. “Show me what you need.”

\- -

Senni caught on to the tracking system immediately and, between them, they finished the job in record time. Luke was just locking the storeroom door behind them when his stomach growled obnoxiously.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I can swing through the mess hall and pick us up something.”

“Get whatever you want,” she waved the offer away. “I'm fine.”

“Tell me what you like,” he cajoled, catching her hand in his and starting to lead her down the corridors. He opted for a back route least likely to put them in contact with anyone. “You'll be starving sooner or later.” He glanced backward to wink at her suggestively.

Senni rolled her eyes at him, but the corners of her mouth quirked. “Caff, if they have it,” she conceded. Then warned, “but just black. Nothing in it – milk, sucra – _nothing_.”

Skywalker turned a corner into another empty hall. “Food, cyar'ika,” he corrected. “You have to eat.”

“I _don't_.”

Luke paused and turned, his nose crinkling as he frowned. “That wasn't an order,” he reproved, unable to keep a little dismay out of his voice at the obstinance of her tone. “I wasn't trying to force anything on you. I just -.”

Senni pulled her hand out of his and stepped back. “Ask me.”

He stood for a second, uncertain. Agitation had crept into her previously confident demeanor, her arms tucking themselves tightly around her torso as if something ached.

“You have three questions still,” she prompted again, roughly. “Ask me why I don't eat.”

His stomach plummeted and a familiar feeling slithered down his spine. He wasn't going to like what came next. “Why don't you eat, Senni?”

Even under the bulk of the snowsuit she wore, Luke could see – _feel?_ \- her muscles contract in fight-or-flight torsion. She glanced furtively up and down the empty corridor, and her voice came out strangely hollow. “It doesn't stay down. My body can't digest. Anything. I'm -,” her eyes flicked up to his, meeting his confused gaze with a grimace that looked distinctly like an apology. “Defective.”

Skywalker's mind spun backward. Surely he'd seen her eat before, hadn't he? The cantina? No, he thought, muzzily, that had been just caff and Starshine – and he hadn't actually _seen_ her drink the liquor. At the time, he'd assumed she'd snagged some of the ration bars from the _Falcon's_ galley en route to Alderaan, but now that he thought about it he couldn't recall any evidence to support the idea. Last time she'd come to him her stay had been so brief that neither of them had had a chance to think about food.

The revelation suddenly cast the exacting leanness of her frame in a drastically different light. His heart wrenched at the thought of how she must suffer. “How… do you stay alive?”

A sick look flickered across her face and her eyes swept over him in a repetitive, paranoid circuit, as if waiting for reprisal. “Serums. Medicine, sometimes. That's what I was stealing from the Hutt.”

Anger blazed through Luke and he felt his expression contort in rage – _kriffing Hutts._ It wasn't enough to terrorize planets, ruin lives with the spice trade, and build their wealth on the backs of slaves – they had to withhold rare medicine, too?

Senni swallowed. “I should have told you. Before.”

Skywalker realized with a pang that she'd misinterpreted his fury. “No,” he countered in a rush, stepping forward to rub his hands up and down the arms of her snowsuit, comfortingly. “No, it's all right.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I'm glad you told me.” He found and lifted one of her hands, pressing the palm to his lips. “But I understand why you didn't earlier.”

An idea occurred and his eyes fell closed, sorrow slicing through him. “That's why you can't stay, isn't it? You can't get what you need here.”

“I need you,” she offered, quietly. "I get that here."

Luke pulled her into his arms, touched and aching. He was trying to figure out what to say when his stomach growled loudly.

Senni chortled, the sound distorted by thick fabric of his jacket. She pushed back slightly. “You obviously still need to eat.” She offered him a small, hopeful smile. “And I wouldn't mind a caff.”

“Right.” Luke squared his shoulders. “Can you find your way to my room from here?”

She cocked her head at him, quizzically. “Is that a trick question?”

“No?”

“I never go anywhere without memorizing the schematics first if I can help it,” she informed him, then winked mischievously. “I've got your codes, too, so I can let myself in. Go get some food.”

Without waiting for a reply, she ducked down a side corridor, leaving him to stare after her.

\- -

“Whoa! Easy now!”

Wedge's startled voice and an unexpected draught of icy air jolted Luke awake. He squinted through sleep-heavy eyes, then jerked upright. “No!”

His right hand shot out, catching Senni's wrist and twisting it up – redirecting the blaster she held toward the ceiling and away from Wedge. With his left hand, Luke grabbed a handful of blanket and dragged it up over her naked breasts, hauling her back against his equally bare chest in the process. Her stance, though improvised, was rock steady and her aim had looked dead on, but he could feel her heart pounding against his arm.

With a flash of insight that felt akin to being whacked upside the head, he realized she was projecting _protectiveness_ in the Force. He got a disjointed splash of instinctive defensiveness, almost feral possessiveness, and… love. For a second, he mentally gaped. In Hoth's close quarters, he'd grown accustomed to randomly getting other people's thoughts and feelings broadcast at him – especially in times of strong emotion. That wasn't new, in itself.

But from Senni... he usually couldn't detect her at all, even when he bent the whole of his fledgling understanding and skill toward “seeing” her that way. Once or twice, he'd gotten a whiff of presence from her in the Force – beautiful and elusive, like walking through a garden of velanie flowers at night – but never like this. And to find -.

“You trust him?” Senni's harsh question snapped Luke back out of his gobsmacked distraction, her tousled hair tickling his cheek as she turned her face toward his without fully taking her eyes off Wedge.

“Yes,” he said, resolutely. “He's a friend.” Then, in response to an unexpected flush of anxiety in her sense, he added hurriedly – and more gently, “it's all right.”

Senni tugged against his hold on her wrist and he let go, sliding the hand under the blankets to rub a thumb reassuringly against her thigh. She leaned to the side, purposefully setting the blaster down on the small ledge by the head of the bunk before straightening and greeting Antilles with a formal, “hello.”

Wedge slowly lowered his hands from where they'd been raised in a classic “don't shoot!” position and grinned with the sort of wry mirth only Corellians seemed to master. “Nice to meet you,” he replied, just managing to keep an open laugh out of his voice. “You must Luke's mystery girl.”

Luke shot his roommate a sheepish smile. “Wedge, this is Senni. Cyar'ika, meet my XO and roommate, Wedge Antilles.”

Senni nodded in acknowledgment and allowed Luke to coax her back into laying down, her back pressed to his chest. He dropped a soft kiss to her shoulder before grimacing apologetically at his friend. “Sorry, Wedge. I should have commed to let you know she was here.”

“S'allright,” Antilles waved it off, gamely, dropping onto his bunk and tugging at a boot. “I'd planned to spend the night elsewhere anyway.” He yanked off his second boot. “But turns out my date's roommate snores like a turbo-saw.” Stripping off two of his three layers above the waist, Wedge crawled into his bunk. “You get the lights Boss?”

Luke reached out mentally and easily flicked the lights off. It was a trick he'd learned by accident but found quite convenient.

“Thanks,” Wedge yawned.

The room fell into stillness briefly. Then Wedge's snoring lofted off his pillow in an easy, lulling rhythm. Luke snuggled himself back around Senni, hoping this hadn't ruined her chances of getting back to sleep. She didn't seem to get much rest, he'd observed.

_I didn't mean to project. That was… rude, of me._

Luke blinked. The voice had unmistakably been Senni's… and she definitely hadn't spoken out loud. Was she… _speaking into his head_? She had the Force? It almost wasn't a surprise, he realized, but just as quickly as that thought came it was followed by others that made his breath catch. Had she been intentionally hiding herself from him that way? Why? The spiral of his thoughts was interrupted by the feel of her wincing, shoulders hunching in on herself.

_Kenobi didn't tell you._

Luke shook his head. Unsure how to replicate her wonderful feat, he pleaded, barely audibly, “You'll tell me?” His arms tightened around her. “ _Teach_ me?”

She tried for lightness, joking, _you think you can bed me enough times to get answers to all your questions about_ _using_ _the Force?_

The words hit a flat note is his head, their forced levity unable to disguise the disquiet singing in the air around her or the shimmering tension locking up her muscles.

“Cyar'ika…” he gently turned her body into his, wrapped a strong arm around the back of her head when she pressed her face to his chest, curling into him as if seeking refuge.

 _I'm not like you,_ she whispered in his head. _I don't – it isn't always with me._ _It's… complicated._

And there a feeling he distinctly recognized as heart-sickness added its bleak note to the fugue around her sense. Luke pressed a kiss to the top of her head and tried to send soothing feelings toward her. He didn't really have any idea what he was doing, but he hoped it would work anyway. It was all he could think to do, and he _hated_ being helpless.

After a while, he decided some of it must have gotten through because she drifted off in his arms. He lay awake for a long time, memorizing the feel of her body beside his and trying to process the radical changes in their relationship in the last eighteen hours. Senni had trusted him with one perilous secret and somewhat inadvertently revealed another. She'd plainly stated that she considered herself “defective” and “complicated” and “rude”. (When he found out who had taught her to think of herself that way, he was going to feed them to a sarlacc.) She did not, apparently, realize the full extent of what she'd projected, however. Didn't know she'd bared herself enough to let him see the depth of her feelings for him.

Tenderness welled up in his chest and Luke brushed another feather-light kiss over her hair.

They'd have to talk – the sooner the better – about what “not always with her” meant. Either one had the Force or not, didn't they? It wasn't a fickle creature that came and went, it was simply a matter of training and control. The more you had, the greater your degree of attunement and access. But that couldn't be entirely true, because he could always feel the Force with him and he obviously had less training and skill than she did.

Somewhere, amidst the swirl of questions and half-formed theories that swarmed his brain, Luke fell asleep.

\- -

At 0200 hours, Senni's data pad chimed. At 0205, dressed and clutching her single, small pack, she whispered a kiss across his lips and vanished.


	5. Cards and Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really happy with this, but it's not getting any better, so we're going with it!

_Hoth, Eight and half months post-Yavin_

Shouts and exaggerated groans chorused on all sides as Skywalker triumphantly tossed his cards into the center of the crate that passed for a gaming table in the center of the crowded pilot's lounge. He laughed, leaning far out over the pile of junk and treasure bet with and swept the overflowing pot toward himself.

“You're not cheating, are you Luke?” Wes jibed. His face was flushed and his words slightly slurred from pleasant inebriation – it was Rogue Squadron's night off, and they were all determined to fully enjoy it. “Using the Force to mind-trick us into bad hands?”

“That's not how the Force works.”

Luke's head snapped up at the familiar voice and, in spite of the too-late thought that maybe she'd expect him to pretend not to know her, his face lit up.

“Room for one more here?” Senni asked, surveying the cramped circle. A loose, hooded shirt in dove grey covered her from head to hip, her thumbs hooking through small holes at the bottom of the sleeves. Dark pants of thick material tucked into tall boots rounded out the modest outfit. It wasn't usual Rebel off-hours attire, but it didn't overtly stand out, either.

“Right here,” Luke answered immediately. He held out his hand in invitation, ignoring the sideways glances exchanged around the table when she sauntered around the others and let him scoop her into his lap. The heat of so many bodies in the relatively small space had already prompted Skywalker to completely unfasten his jacket and he was pleased for it now, as it meant there were only the thinner layers of his two thermal shirts between his chest and Senni's back; his body was already responding to the promise of her arrival and he wanted to feel her against him as much as he could. Luke adjusted his posture on the low bench, snugging her between his thighs and finding an angle that let him feel the press of what he guessed were twin vibroblades sheathed at the small of her back without them digging uncomfortably into his stomach.

“Deal us in,” he jerked his chin toward Hobbie with a challenging grin. “Unless you want to fold.”

“And lose my chance to win it all back now that you're distracted?” Klivian pretended affront. “Not gonna get off that easy, Boss!”

Settling his chin on her shoulder, Luke snuck one arm around Senni's waist and squeezed lightly. _Glad you're here,_ he sent – as much to see if the Force was 'with her' this visit as to make sure she knew.

 _You can prove it when we get out of here,_ she retorted, intentionally shifting her weight to rub against the noticeable hardness already pressing against her backside. _I expect to be kriffed twice as hard to make up for the delay._

Luke kissed the soft fabric concealing her throat and worked the hand at her waist under the edge of her top, searching for skin. _Count on it._

Senni accepted the cards Klivian dealt, fanning them neatly in one hand so Luke could see them while keeping them angled away from anyone else's view.

Two beings to Luke's left, Nichos Panib lifted a flagon of the rot-gut liquor they'd been sharing. “Pour you a drink - ?” the Green Squadron pilot offered, his tone lifting and lingering at the end in a clear bid to get Senni to give him her name.

“No thanks. Brought my own.” Senni's hand dipped below the table, then came back up with a thin, scratched and dented flask whose curvature suggested it was designed to tuck in the top of a boot. She hoisted it in his direction with a cheeky smile before flicking off the cap, taking a swig, and returning single-mindedly to the cards.

 _Serum?_ Luke inquired with interest.

 _Juri juice,_ she replied. _Special vintage. Rodian blood base._

There was a pause and Luke could feel her weighing something while he took his turn picking cards and dropping them onto the table. He was familiar with the drink – it was common enough to have been available in most Anchorhead cantinas - though he'd never had that particular varietal. It was supposedly less addictive (if no less alcoholic) than other juri juice blends and rumored to be something of an acquired taste. He was a little surprised that Senni could tolerate it, given her condition, but he couldn't help but be happy for her sake that there was at least something besides espresso she could have.

 _I'm not supposed to have it,_ she confided. _But it won't make me sick and I think I deserve to celebrate._

Luke wondered if she'd heard his thoughts, but decided that if it had prompted her to share that precious confidence with him he didn't care. _Celebrat_ _e_ _what?_ He asked, the fingers he'd wormed under her shirt skimming over the soft skin of her abdomen in short, easy strokes.

_Have you heard of the Zann Consortium?_

Luke blinked. _Pretty sure everybody has. It's only one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the galaxy._

Senni gave what felt like the mental analog of a nod and her tone dropped to a distinctly satisfied register. _Last week I took out Urai Fen. Talorai second in command of the Zann Consortium._ She cut her eyes surreptitiously back toward him. _The mission earned me enough serum that I'm strong in the Force, now – I can… show you things. Like you wanted._

Luke's mouth went dry and his stomach lurched. He saw Senni's expression shutter and knew she'd felt his reaction. He scrambled for words, but she suddenly thrust up out of his lap, knocking the bench – and him with it – backward. Every head at the table swiveled toward her in alarm, but she wasn't looking at them, instead hyper-focused on the back wall by the improvised bar.

“Something's coming!” she hissed, dropping into a defensive half-crouch. “Skywalker -!”

Luke, too, abruptly got the gut feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong – and then there was an ear-popping crunch and a massive section of the back wall gave way. Chunks of ice the size of astromech droids tumbled over each other, smashing everything in their path as they were heaved forward by giant clawed hands.

“Ice creatures!” Hobbie shouted, bolting to his feet and waving his arms wildly. “Everybody out! Now!”

The room erupted into shouts and screams and Luke shot to his feet then jumped onto the crate – scattering cards in all directions – to avoid being trampled as beings packed against one another in frantic effort to get to the much-too-small-door.

“Senni!”

The air was thick with a fog of dislodged snow crystals and acrid smoke boiling out of the snapped power lines that stuck, frayed and sparking, out of the broken section of wall.

“Senni!” Luke yelled again, one arm thrown half over his face as he searched the mess for her. Then he saw her – Force help him, she was _scaling the wall_ to his left, a vibroblade in each hand. With every swing, she sunk one of the knives into the ice above her head and pulled herself up a little further, her feet jamming into cracks to help support her wherever she could find them.

As he watched, incredulous, she reached a deep storage nook carved out along the length of the wall where it met the ceiling and swung herself into it. With an impressively flexible twist she pretzeled herself into a crouch in the odd space and tucked the knives away again. Then she turned in his direction, her eyes locking onto his and her mouth twisting into a grim line.

_Let me have your saber._

_What?_

He couldn't hear the impatient noise she made, but he felt the pulse of it across their bond. The wampas – there were two them, slamming meaty fists through the already splintered bar – roared, and Luke didn't try to think, just freed the light saber from his belt. As soon as it was loose, it flew out of his hand, arcing neatly into Senni's.

Time slowed down. The room was nearly empty around them, only the last handful of rebels squeezing through the door, the blaring of alarm sirens and an indistinguishable voice calling orders over the emergency intercom system. Senni coiled herself up and then launched – Luke's heart was in his throat in awe and terror watching her somersault through the air from her precarious perch. There was a familiar snap-hiss and his saber ignited halfway through a flip. There was a screech of rage from one of the creatures as she landed – feet together – squarely on its head. A hum and a sheet of blue light and the second creature's head was rolling free of its body. She was moving again, twisting and bouncing down the first monster's form as if it were a game, a dance. Red trailed blue as the saber moved with her and Luke was hit with a wall of stench as Senni touched the ground and the wampa came apart in meticulously divided sections behind her, it's guts pouring out in a smelly, steaming heap that stopped just shy of her boots.

There was a cacophony of noise in the corridor – security was on its way, no doubt with heavy blaster rifles in tow. Still shell-shocked, his entire body singing with adrenaline, Luke vaulted off the table. Senni shut down the saber and reversed its handle, offering it back as he approached. He snatched it with one hand, putting it back on his belt, and grabbed her hand with his other.

“We have to go. _Now._ ”

She didn't argue, following his lead until it became clear they were headed for his quarters. She dug in her heels. “Let go.”

“What's wrong?” He turned to her, tightening his hold on her hand.

“Your room is the first place they'll look for you – I can't be there when they show up. I'll go -.”

“You're not going anywhere without me,” Luke asserted, unyielding. “Come on. I've got another idea.”

He took her to the _Falcon_. He kept her behind him as he waved at Chewie when they boarded, then hurried her to his room and locked the door behind him. He hadn't ever brought a woman to the _Falcon_ before, but he was as sure that they wouldn't be disturbed as he was that he'd get ribbed mercilessly about it later. Certain the door was locked, he turned on his heel, rounding on Senni where she stood, tense and wary behind him.

“You're not -,” she started.

Luke's hands came up, capturing her face, and he kissed her fiercely. Her hands twisted around his wrists, squeezing as if to pull him away even as she opened her mouth, letting him plunder it with his tongue.

_What are you -?_

_That was **amazing**. _ He found the hem of her shirt and shoved his hands under it, hauling it upward, breaking the kiss just long enough to drag it over her head. Another short, hungry kiss later, he flung her under-tunic aside, too – and then he stopped, staring at the skin he'd revealed.

“I thought...” the words were breathy, and Senni's flushed chest heaved slightly as she gulped for air in nervousness poorly disguised by her attempt at a nonchalant tone. “...you might like it.”

Luke ran a finger along the edge of the lace that cupped her breasts, then dipped it to ghost the pad of a finger over her quickly hardening nipple. She swallowed a squeak and he felt a wicked smile slide across his face. This was the first time he'd ever found her in something other than basic, practical undergarments… and she'd intentionally selected them _just for him_. He cupped her breast with a palm, kneading firmly as his other hand slipped around to draw her closer to him.

“I do. Lots,” he murmured, nibbling at the delicate skin beneath her ear and making her breath catch. “Shall I show you how much?”

\- -

Luke kept one hand flat on Senni's hip, the bone there pressing hard into his palm as she arched, a pleading string of babble in a language he didn't recognize spilling off her tongue. He grinned, releasing the flesh of her thigh and inspecting the love bite he'd been sucking into her creamy skin, gratified by the result. Then he glanced up at her, twisting the two fingers he had buried inside her, and watched her toss her head, eyes squeezed shut, as she mewled in response.

“Have'ta give me that in Basic, Cyar'ika,” he reminded her, indulgently, before dropping his head back down to tease her sopping wet slit with his tongue again.

The next few words out of her mouth were rather vulgar and clearly recognizable, and he chuckled against her, flicking his tongue against her clit in retaliation. He worked his fingers against the soft, rough spot inside her, keeping a firm grip on her hip as she bucked violently and dissolved into a shaky, whimpering release. Her entire body was warm and flushed, fragrant with the arousal that smeared across her thighs and his face. Luke softened his strokes, lapping at her lazily as she spiraled back down. She was a vision and he hoarded every sensation – the taste of her, the faint tremor of her muscular thighs against his cheek.

That was four, by his count. Twice as he'd come inside her and twice more he'd taken her over the edge with his fingers and tongue. (An extravagance she'd only submitted to when he'd assured her he absolutely _had_ to have a break before his own body would be up to any more pleasure and that, yes, as soon as it was he'd let her return the favor.)

Wiping his face carelessly on the back of his hand, Luke crawled up Senni's body until he could stretch out beside her. Her head lolled to the side and she stared at him fuzzily, bleary with exhaustion and bliss. “Are you… going to ask me questions now?” she mumbled, a faint shadow of dismay crossing her expression.

“No.” Luke brushed the tip of his nose against hers lovingly, then punctuated his answer with a happy kiss. “Later.”

“Later,” she agreed on a quietly relieved sigh.

Luke was nearly asleep, warm and content with her heartbeat under his ear, when she said his name. “Hmmm?”

“Is it all right if… I love you?”

He huffed a laugh against her breast. “Still need a couple more minutes to recover, sweetheart.”

A ripple of tension passed under his cheek and his hand where they lay against her.

“Not like that. I mean…” She swallowed. “I'd die for you, if you wanted, you know. Anything -.”

Energy surged through Luke's languid body and he shoved up, bracing himself on one hand as he leaned over, planting the other hand beside her head. “Don't say that!” He gentled, with effort, at the alarm on her face. “You're not allowed to die on me, Cyar'ika.” He kissed her, soft and slow, calming and soothing her before speaking again. “I love you,” he pressed his cheek to her temple, bowed his body of hers protectively. “I love you,” he repeated.

Senni wrapped herself around him silently, and clung.

_\- -_

Luke stared at the gusts of snow whipping back and forth outside the heavily insulated transparisteel window and sipped at his drink without truly seeing the spinning flakes or tasting the bittersweet chocolate coating his tongue. They were only half-tangible, like the prickling ache of hard use that lingered in his muscles under the receding tide of endorphins.

His mind felt like a storm in a bottle – albeit one with newly thickened glass. In exchange for several of the precious questions he'd “earned” from her, Senni had made good on her promise to teach him what she could about using the Force – starting with how to construct mental shields. The difference was incredible. The never-ending psychic hubbub of a base full of personnel had started rebounding off and away from him instead of streaming through. Now the only chaos in his head was his own.

Beside him, at a small table nestled into the corner of the mess hall, Artoo tweedled, drawing his attention back. Luke set his rapidly-cooling mug down.

“You're sure?”

//Records analysis yields a ninety-nine-point-six percent correlation rate,// the droid confirmed.

A faint smile played at the edges of Skywalker's mouth. “She's using the _Falcon_ as a taxi service.”

The astromech chirped in agreement.

He leaned forward, curiously. “Any idea how she's tracking it?”

Artoo gave a sad hum. //That data is not yet available for off-world connections. However, an active tracker bot pings an unknown destination when departure clearance for the _Millennium_ Falcon is requested from Control.” The droid's photo-receptive eye swiveled and canted. //Do you wish me to deactivate it?//

“No,” Luke said quickly. “We'd better leave it intact for now, thanks.”

A tiny light flashed on Artoo's dome and he bleeped. //I am needed to assist with engine test runs on our ship. I can go?//

Luke smiled the astromech's reference to his x-wing as “their” ship. “Sure. Thanks, Artoo.”

The droid warbled happily and rolled away. Luke leaned back in his chair, eyes growing distant as he lapsed back into thought. Somewhere in hyperspace, the _Falcon_ was – unknowingly – carrying Senni back to the lonely, perilous life she led when she wasn't stealing time away to seek refuge in his arms.

Letting her go was always difficult, but this time – this time was so much harder.

“ _You're an Imperial, aren't you, Beloved?”_

(Cyar'ika. _Beloved._ How could she have been so surprised to discover he knew what her chosen endearment meant? As if he hadn't gone straight to Threepio the first morning after she'd reappeared in his life, demanding a translation. As if he hadn't been madly curious at discovering it was a Mandalorian diminutive.)

“ _That depends on your point of view.”_ She'd traced the tip of a finger in complex patterns over his bare chest in silence for a few moments. _“Your Command would say yes, but under Imperial law the answer is a solid no. My… the… person I work for, is.”_

“ _He pays you in the serum you need.”_ It hadn't been a question – it had been the only thing that made sense, and he'd just stated out loud as he'd turned it over in his head.

His blood boiled now – as it had then - to think about what her 'employer' was making her do for that precious elixir. Talorai like the crime boss she'd been so proud of killing were huge, dangerous beings – half reptile, half avian, renowned for exceptionally long life and vicious natures. To have thrown Senni against one – _at all,_ let alone _by herself_ – was preposterously unreasonable, no matter how capable she'd proven herself to be. That her right to eat – to _live_ – had been contingent on her success was nothing short of heinous.

She'd nodded anyway. _“Do what I'm told, get fed.”_ She'd leaned back a little to see his face, the concern on hers painful to look at. _“You weren't happy – about what I did, when I told you earlier.”_

“ _What you did was fine,” he'd corrected, asserting darkly, “that he holds your condition over your head and makes you risk your life like that - that's not employment. It's slavery. Blackmail.”_

She'd seemed taken aback. _“No -._ ” S he'd started to counter, then paused. _“I'm not. Slaves – you can free a slave, and they can be… something else. I'm...”_ she'd made a sour face and rolled onto her back to stare morosely at the ceiling. _“Just a pet. Property that has to be kept, or -,”_ her voice had dropped, bitterly. _“Or put down.”_

Luke glared at the snow, struggling against the wrath thrashing like a live thing in his chest. The woman he loved – who miraculously _loved him back_ – was being systematically starved and abused by an Imperial master… and there was nothing he could do about it.

 _Yet,_ he promised himself. _Nothing I can do yet. I WILL find a way._

He wished she'd just tell him everything, in all its gory detail – make it easier for him to help her. But Senni was stealthy as a tessek, paranoid as Yinchorri, and idiosyncratic as a Khormai… and, from what he could glean, it was a combination that had somehow managed to keep her alive in the face of overwhelming odds. She couldn't be faulted for how she was, and pressuring her wouldn't help. He'd just have to keep digging on his own with what he gotten out of her.

Luke spun the data pad on the table in front of him in absent circles. There had been helpful tidbits in the things she'd said. A trail of breadcrumbs, inadvertently dropped for him to follow.

The comment about Imperial law, for example. Generally speaking, aside from declaring themselves part of the Rebel Alliance, there wasn't a lot that kept humans – or even near-humans – from being automatically granted Imperial citizenship at birth. It could, theoretically, be taken away as punishment for any number of poorly-defined crimes. (He'd looked it up: Imperial Decree A-SL-4557.607.232. A ream of tongue-twisting legalese that essentially gave Regional Governors the authority to strip individuals of their rights and sell them into fully sanctioned slavery for “crimes against the civil order”.) It was possible that that was had happened to her, but it didn't feel right. Threepio was still investigating for him on that front, looking for other loopholes or exclusions that might explain it.

Luke tapped the data pad's screen, rereading the message open in his list of text comms.

 _Didn't find any such condition in available medical records._ _No_ _thing_ _to suggest such a condition might be treatable once contracted/developed,_ _either._ _Sorry._

He'd tried researching disorders that left people unable to eat and, despite the inquiries returning a slew of disturbing results, found nothing that matched what he knew of Senni's condition. He'd brought it up to a friend who worked in the med bay who had promised to look into it – and, per their message – they'd had no more luck than he.

Which meant Senni's condition was _exceedingly_ rare – even in the Core where people routinely survived all manner of things that would be a death sentence in the Outer Rim. (Luke wondered idly if Jabba even knew that what he'd had in his vault was a form of medicine, or if he'd thought it something else altogether.)

Luke scrubbed his face with his hands. He just needed _time_ with her. Time to earn questions. To train more in the Force – improve his ability to hear what she was only half saying, better read the emotions she was only half able to hide. But time wasn't on their side. It never had been. And in the wake of the wampa incident, a fresh round of questions was cropping up… questions he was in no position to answer safely.

Still… it wasn't as if there wasn't _any_ hope. Now that he knew how she was getting back and forth from base, he might be able to finagle them extra time. _If I ask Artoo to mis-feed all mission requests for the_ Falcon _starting as soon as Senni gets here, it'll delay Han leaving again and let me keep her longer._ Hells, he could even bribe the astromech to create a false error message in the freighter’s systems. Nothing too dangerous – just… time-consuming to track down.

Another thought popped up, and fresh hope and a hint of mischief flooded into Luke's chest. There were lots of perfectly honest – and utterly unhelpful – ways to answer questions and keep yourself out of trouble. (He'd learned from the masters there – Hobbie and Wes had refined it to something approaching an art form.) The trick, they'd explained, was making sure the questions were just vague enough to give you wiggle room in which to turn the tables, twist the question around, or otherwise get everyone so lost in the bigger picture that they dropped the tread of what they'd been actually trying to get to altogether.

If he could muddy up the waters a bit – say by throwing a few fresh, juicy morsels into the Base's rumor mill – he could buy himself a nice bit of leeway by the time anyone with questions actually got to him. He smothered a smile; he'd bet his x-wing that Artoo wasn't the only one willing to spread a little misinformation on his behalf. Gathering his empty cup and his data pad, he got up and went in search of his Squad.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wampas breaking into the base is obviously inspired by ESB deleted scenes.
> 
> Juri Juice (including the fact that some types were made with Rodian blood) is an actual GFFA thing. Interestingly, some Rodians were Force sensitive...


	6. Opportunity Cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben Kenobi's ghost has issued Luke instructions to go to Dagobah and finish his training. Senni's last visit before he leaves makes Luke painfully aware of the risks and costs associated with his impending absence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on timing: I'm tweaking canon only slightly here in that I've put an extra week or two between Luke's run-in with the wampas and the Battle of Hoth, during which Luke is making preparations to leave. He'll still be there, Senni will be gone, and the _Falcon_ will be back on base in time for the Battle of Hoth to otherwise go off as per ESB.

_Ten months post-Yavin._

 

She should have come back by now.

Luke stared at the data pad in his hand, elated and a bit queasy over the official confirmation staring back at him. His request for a leave of absence to pursue Jedi training had been approved. He had a week to wrap up his affairs and hand the Rogues over to Wedge for the duration. But he had no way to contact Senni and tell her. To explain. It had been a month and a half since he'd seen her last – longer than she usually went without finding a way to visit, even if only for a night. He couldn't bear the thought of her coming back only to find him gone without a word.

_Please, Cyar'ika. I need you to come back now._

\- -

The hangar was dimly lit, only the subdued, buttery glimmer of power-saving overnight safety illumination in effect as Luke trudged across its expanse. Time was short and he'd been unable to resist taking a break from last-minute preventative maintenance on his x-wing to join the rest of the Rogues for a late dinner. Now, with his stomach full of what Hobbie called “Probably-Nerf Surprise” and his heart full from his Squad's companionship, it was time to finish the last few items on his checklist, close up the fighter, and call it a night. Reaching the ship, he leaned down and flicked a switch, snapping on the bright circle of starkly-white task lighting he'd set up to facilitate his after-hours work.

A small, familiar bag had been dropped innocuously beside the landing gear. His heart rate sped up and Luke clamored up the ladder affixed to the side of the ship, relief and dread swirling inside him. He came to a jolting stop at the apex, hands fisting around the curved metal bars.

Senni was tucked into the shadows of the narrow foot well, knees drawn up to her chest, arms folded between her thighs and chest. Luke's data pad glowed softly on the pilot's seat beside her. He couldn't feel her in the Force – not a wisp – but the rigid squareness to her shoulders and the way she kept her face turned away from him told him everything he needed to know.

“You weren't supposed to find out this way.”

“It doesn't matter.” Senni's voice was dull. Hollow. “You don't owe me anything.” The shadows moved as she lifted a hand to rub at a temple. “It's good. You've wanted this. Since Tatooine.”

“Come with me.” Luke swung himself over the edge of the cockpit and crouched awkwardly – the space wasn't meant for this at all – propping his elbows on the seat and leaning toward her urgently. “You have the Force, sometimes, and you're _good_ with it. I'm sure this Master Yoda will teach you, too.” She hadn't moved, and Luke reached out to cup a hand over her knee and squeeze encouragingly. “If he's really a Jedi Master then he must know some way to help you with your condition.”

Senni shook her head, miserably. “I've been rejected by three Jedi already, Skywalker. That's enough for one lifetime.”

“You what?” Luke gaped at her, aghast, his mind scrambling. “You mean Ben, for one, I'm guessing. But there were others? You've met other Jedi before?”

“I finished your checklist,” she said instead of answering, finally turning her head to face him. “Was there something else you had to do tonight?”

“Senni…” Luke lifted his hand from her knee to catch her chin and turn her face further toward the light. She flinched away from it, the brush of her long lashes against her chalk-white cheeks drawing his attention to the garishly dark circles under her eyes. “Are you sick?”

“I'm fine.” Her gaze swept over his face, taking in the scars that hadn't been there last time she'd seen him. “You got hurt.”

“Wampa tried to make a snack of me,” Skywalker admitted with chagrin, then gave her a pointed look. “Don't try to change the subject. What happened to you?”

“You don't have any questions yet,” she retorted with a truculent glare.

A muscle in Luke's jaw twitched. He wanted to respect her rules – he did – but this was his last chance to see her for Force knew how long. He had to know she was okay – or figure out what there was to be done while there was still a chance to do something at all. Steeling himself, he put an uncompromising edge to his tone and pulled his hand back from her knee.

“Tell me when you've been and why you look like shavit, or I won't take you to bed.”

Senni 's eyes snapped shut, her head ducking as if he'd swung a fist at her. H er expression screw ed up  as though she'd swallowed something bitter and, for a harrowing minute, Skywalker thought she was going to try to fling herself past him and bolt. 

“Bellassa.” The first word sounded as if it were ripped from her; the rest tumbled out in a rush.  “A testing cycle, on Bellassa.” 

Unease slithered down the back of Luke's neck. “What's a testing cycle?”

“Jenna makes things – bioweapons, mostly – that he – my owner, wants.” Senni gulped a shaky lungful of air and opened her eyes, meeting Luke's and challenging him to listen to the ugliness he'd demanded she share. “She likes Force users – wants to know what makes them tick. How to make them... controllable. They trade. He lets her have me for a testing cycle in exchange for her latest creations.” Senni dug the heel of her right hand into her collarbone as if it ached. “She's supposed to feed me, after, so I can recover. But she keeps some of my serum, for her research, and I – it wasn't enough. I've been medicating, but it's slow.” Her voice dropped even lower. “Satisfied?” 

“ _Nekouda!_ ” Luke swore, lurching forward and shoving his data pad off the seat. Senni looked startled, then confused when he maneuvered himself around until he was sitting in the fighter's seat, but cautiously allowed him to pull her up into his lap. 

Her  legs  slid  to either side of his over the  edges of the seat  and she let her head sink into the  juncture of his neck and shoulder, nestling  there as he  curved  a hand  around the back of her head,  and splayed  the other warm and solid against her back.  Her right arm slipped around him; her left she tucked  between them,  her fingers inching into one of his pockets for warmth .

Luke seethed. The Force was supposed to be a _gift_. A grave responsibility, to be sure, but on e that was a privilege to bear. A link to transcendent wisdom and insight – not a target painted on your back. Not a faulty connection, eccentric and unreliable as a goose droid. It wasn't _right_.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized roughly. 

It was grossly inadequate – not even a fraction of what he wanted to say – but he didn't have words for the rest. Or rather he had too many, all of them sharp and hard, and it would serve no good end to vent them on her, even if it might make him feel a hairsbreadth better.

“S'okay,” she mumbled into his vest. “Always been like this. At least I got to have you for a while.”

Skywalker tightened his hold on her. “I'm coming back.”

“Not to me,” she whispered, sadly. “You'll be a Jedi. They don't abide by gargoyles.”

“Gargoyles?” Luke frowned and rubbed her back in slow circles, the way Aunt Beru had done for him when he was a youngling and upset. “What are you talking about?” 

“Tatooine,” she said, as if to herself. “Probably never seen one, have you? Stone monsters. Hollow. Ugly. When it rains, the water just pours right through and out again...like the Force through me. Because there's nothing to keep it in.”

“That's terrible,” Luke scolded, scowling at the top of her head. “Don't say things like that.” 

She gave a low, unhappy noise that might have been related to a laugh. “Never have to hear me  say anything again,  soon .” Her breath hitched. “Will you… have me? One more time, first?” 

Luke rested his cheek against her temple, his chest constricting so much it burned. “As many times as I can before you have to go,” he promised.

Senni lifted her head and he kissed her, slowly, gently. They stayed that way for a long time, trading kisses in a web of sadness and sweetness. Eventually, Luke broke from the press of her lips to say, “we should go  somewhere else. ” He slid a hand up her side, under her jacket, then around to cup a breast. “So I can do more for you.” 

“Here,” Senni countered.

Luke couldn't help but crack a smile. “I thought getting kriffed in a fighter was supposed to be a pilot fetish,” he teased.

“It's going with you,” she explained, seriously. She glanced around, then pushed off his lap, wriggling into the narrow space between his seat and the edge of the ship. “Here,” she announced, wrapping strong, slender fingers around the handles of the ladder and looking down at it, grief and determination playing across her features where they were caught in the edge of the stark work light. “So the last thing you touch before you step into the Jedi's world will remind you of me.” 

Skywalker grabbed the back of the seat to lever himself up and planted his feet on either side of hers, his body pressed against hers from knee to hip. He leaned over her, his hands closing over hers, and nuzzled the underside of her jaw. “I'm coming back,” he  repeated , unequivocally. “ S trong enough to take you away from  _him_ .” 

She started to shake her head and Luke let go of one of her hands, bringing his own up to catch the side of her head, holding her still against him. “Promise you'll watch for me.” He kissed his way down the side of her face, nudged her collar out of the way to continue down her throat. “That you'll find me again, when I come back. No matter what.”

“Luke -.”

His hands moved down, opening her jacket and kneading both her breasts through her shirt the way he knew she liked, drawing a low, needy sound from her. “Promise me.”

“Yes,” she whispered, tipping her head back against him, her hands white-knuckled on the ladder.

Luke wished he could feel her in the Force. Wished she could feel him – so she'd  _understand._ But he'd have to work with what he had and, right now, that was strictly the physical. Flattening his hands against her ribs, Luke slid them down until he found the hem of her thermal layers. Tugging them free, he worked his hands back up under them un til he found the top of her bra. She'd worn lace for him again. Luke pressed himself against her backside, making sure she felt the hardness that evidenced his approval. Tugging the cups down, Luke left one hand at her breasts to alternate between them, lightly rolling, pinching and tugging at her nipples in a way that made her squirm eagerly.  His other hand set about the ungainly work of undoing both their belts, dropping the m behind him on the fighter's seat. Then it found its way to getting both their pants and underthings down to their knees. There wasn't  anything like enough room to fully get everything off, here, but it didn't matter. Obstacles removed, Skywalker readily curved his hand around Senni's hip and down between her legs. She whined as his fingers dipped between her folds, stroking firmly. Seeking out the places he knew by heart, now – the ones that made  it feel as if her entire body were liquifying in  desire and running out over his talented, relentless fingers. 

There was nowhere to go – barely any room to move, but Senni rocked against his fingers, her breath coming in small gasps. Luke shifted his weight, let his hot, hard length slip between her legs. He groaned, rubbing against her entrance, her slickness coating him. The stroke of her, hot and wet along just the top of him, was delectably erotic. She pushed her hips back, inviting him to lose himself in her, but he held fast. Lingered where he was, struggling to control his own desire so he could focus on her. On fluttering two fingertips across that little bead of pleasure that he knew would send her over the edge in a moment. He prodded her entrance with his tip, feeling the delicious squeeze of her body as she started to take him. Senni shuddered in his arms, teetering on the cusp and Luke smiled against her neck. 

In one smooth movement, he thrust the rest of the way in, one hand pinching a nipple and the other simultaneously exerting just the right pressure  between her thighs.  Senni cried out, throwing her head back as her entire body snapped taut within the confines of his embrace. Luke got in only one more thrust  before she clamped down on him, sweeping them both out into an endlessly starry sea of pleasure. 

After, Luke leaned over her, his forearms bracing against the wide edge of the cockpit. Senni tremulously pried her fingers off the ladder and let her hands rest on top of his, folding over to rest her head on them. Skywalker stayed where he was as long as he could before the creeping cold forced him to reluctantly work himself upright and start righting their clothes. Senni followed his lead more slowly, reaching to refasten her own pants once he'd pulled them up for her.

There was nothing graceful about the contorting and half-climbing necessary to get themselves fairly sorted, reclaim Luke's data pad, and get down the ship's ladder. Senni shouldered her bag while Luke shut off the work lights. Then her hand slipped into his and he led her through the darkness.

\- -

In his room on the  _Falcon –_ Wedge had company tonight, so his quarters were spoken for – Luke locked the door and turned on a single glow-panel. “We could take a sanisteam, if you want,” he offered as he moved to the spare bunk to sit and take his boots off. “The  _Falcon_ has real water hooked up. Gets nice and hot, too.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Senni agreed, her tone warm with gratitude.

Luke turned on the water in the attached 'fresher, letting it heat while he pulled clean towels out of the under-basin cabinet. A welcome nimbus of steam had enveloped the little sanisteam stall when he stepped in and ducked under the massaging stream of water. After the cold of the hangar, the pulsing drops almost stung against his skin, but he relished the sensation of his entire body heating through under their insistent pelting, the ever-present ghost of chill that haunted the Rebels' lives on Hoth finally dissipating.

There was a little puff of cooler air injected into the steam cloud as Senni stepped in behind him. He turned, opening his eyes and swiping a hand over his face to push aside the wet hair that clung to his forehead. She hovered as far back as she could in the miniscule space, her expression longing but the tension in her shoulders speaking of apprehension. It occurred to him, then, that she'd probably never showered with another being before. Luke smiled and reached out, intending to pull her to him and the water. Then he stopped, catching her left arm instead and lifting it.

“What's this?”

“Compression wrap,” she answered, unhelpfully.

“I can see that,” he pursed his lips at her. Anyone who'd ever handled a military medkit would be familiar with the water-resistant, high-tensile-strength wrap designed to keep injuries and basic dressings clean and protected. This particular binding was dark grey in color and wound from the base of Senni's wrist to just below her elbow, neatly taped off at both ends. Luke flickered his gaze up to hers. “Did they do this to you? On Bellassa?”

“Yes.”

Senni shivered and Luke caught an arm around her waist, turning them so that she was pressed against him and directly under the water. Loosing her hair from its braid, he reached for the cleanser.

Plagued by an acute sense of impending loss, Luke glided his soapy hands over her skin with almost fanatical care. His fingers sought out every knotted muscle, traced every curve, hovered over the new marks she carried as souvenirs of her latest ordeal: four green-and-yellow splotches up her spine that had to have been injection points for Force knew what. A fading pink line on her thigh too surgically precise to be anything but an intentional incision.

_Gods,_ how could he leave her? Without him, here, she'd have no escape. No respite. Senni didn't speak, but he could feel his own looming grief reflected in the tenderness with which she washed him in return.

_I'll come back as a Jedi,_ he promised her silently, knowing she couldn't hear him.  _Strong enough to take care of you – take care of everyone._

When they were clean and dry and wearing a minimum of sleep of clothing, Senni sat in the bunk with the covers pooled at her waist. Luke retrieved her bag and sat facing her, so close their knees bumped. He fished out the medkit she'd brought and laid it open beside them, taking a quick assessment of its stock.

“I can do it,” Senni pointed out, picking the tape at her elbow loose and deftly unwinding the wrap.

Luke ignored that, ripping open a sterile wipe packet and waiting, his eyes fixed on her skin as the wrap came away, only the end clinging around her arm like a cuff. A long incision had been made down the inside of her forearm and a green film stained the fair skin to either side of it all down its length. Luke carefully dabbed the antiseptic at the slice, cleaning away the green tinge and the thin crust of blood that lined the top of the cut. When he reached the bottom, he caught the remaining wrap around two fingers and finished unraveling it off of her.

Her wrist was a giant, swollen bruise of mottled plum and ebony. At its epicenter was a flat, six-sided piece of gold. A symbol was stamped into it: six spokes lancing outward from a circle, each ending in a point at one of the hexagon's corners. A sick knot settled in Skywalker's stomach as he delicately lifted her hand and rotated it. An identical piece of gold lay flush with her skin between the fine bones of her wrist there, too.

“Is that… embedded?” he asked, thickly.

She looked at him oddly a moment, then blinked. “You've never seen – oh. The Hutts prefer subcutaneous implants, don't they?” She rummaged in her pack with her free hand. “Yes, it's embedded. The two sides are connected by a coated filament. If I mess with it, the coating will crack and the poison on the filament core will kill me. Nastily, and fast.” She found what she was looking for and extracted her hand from his hold to prop it on her knee.

“Why?” Luke demanded, rage rushing hot through his veins. “Why would they do that to you? Why now?”

“I wasn't supposed to take a lover,” she answered, simply. “Having a visual marker indicates that I'm already claimed. It's supposed to warn you off of me.” She gave a humorless smile. “Wasted effort, now, considering.”

“They did that to you because of _me?_ ”

She cocked her head and her lips curled up a bit. “I haven't taken any other lovers.” When his incensed expression didn't change, she reassured, “It's not your fault. They could have done it any time. I've just never disobeyed before. Never given them a reason. But you were worth it – worth much worse.”

“We're not over!” He tucked his hand between her knee and the back of her hand and laced his fingers through hers possessively. “And I'm _coming back_.”

“So you've said.” Sticking the vial she'd pulled from her bag between her teeth, she placed her middle finger on the right side of the incision near the top. Putting her index finger on the left side, she neatly pressed down, reopening the wound. She repeated the process all the way down, the tension in her expression her only concession to the pain involved. Then she spit the vial into her free palm. With a practiced move, she single-handedly uncorked the top, then meticulously tapped an emerald-hued power from its narrow mouth into the blood welling up from her split skin. When the entire cut was coated with a fine layer of green, she expertly resealed the vial and reached for a fresh bandage.

Luke plucked it from her fingers and took over, handling her as if she were made of glass as he began to re-wrap her arm. “The green powder is your medicine?”

Senni nodded, watching him work. “Bota. It's a plant native to Drongar.” She turned the vial over in her fingers. “Rare, and it doesn't always hold well. But I take what I can get.”

Luke finished the bandage and grabbed a fresh roll of compression wrap, beginning the second layer of protective wrapping. “I've never heard of it.”

“Most people haven't,” she shrugged, then stopped, eyes on the vial. She closed her fist around it tightly for a second, then thrust it at him. “Take it with you.”

“What?” he asked, startled. His hands paused at her elbow where he was smoothing the last piece of tape in place.

“Take it with you,” she commanded, again, this time grasping one his hands, pressing the vial into it and closing his fingers around it. “It can improve your connection to the Force. It might – maybe it'll help you. With your training.”

“I can't take this!” He protested. “You need it!”

“Then you can bring it back to me.” Senni crossed her arms over her chest to forestall any attempt he might make to give it back.

“What if you're not here to bring it back to?” he asked, quietly. He jutted his chin at her arm. “That gets infected -.”

“I promised I'd find you after,” she cut him off, sharply. “And I don't -,” her mouth snapped shut and she ducked her head away to glower at the wall.

“You don't what?” Luke prompted. “Cyar'ika?”

“I don't have anything else to give you,” she gritted, barely audibly.

“You don't need to,” Luke asserted. The words came out more calm than he felt, and he leaned over and purposefully tucked the vial deep into her bag before lifting it over to set it on the floor. Senni had moved and so he moved to her, scooting forward and leaning into her. “You already gave me _you._ I don't need an object -.”

“They'll rub me out!” She shoved at him, furious, her hands fisting, and her whole body vibrating with barely-constrained emotions. “You won't remember – you won't even know that you've forgotten! Just – holes – where I was, and -.”

“Whoa! Slow down.” Luke caught her fists, easing her arms down. “I'm sure that isn't something Jedi do.” He chose not to ask why it was a thing she thought anyone could do, focusing instead on trying to soothe her. “Look, just – will you lay down for me? With me?”

She stayed where she was for another mutinous, drawn-out minute before relenting a little. Luke coaxed her down onto her side, then shimmied under the covers snuggle himself against her. His mind raced, thought tumbling as he considered everything she'd told him and how he might assuage her fears.

An idea coalesced and he freed a hand from the covers, summoning his comm link. He tapped out a quick code, then set it down. He rolled until he was lying on his back, Senni across his chest. Luke felt the fluttery kiss of her lashes as she closed her eyes, and he let himself lean into the Force as much as he knew how, hoping for wisdom.

“Senni?” he asked, when the spark came.

“What?”

Luke ran his fingers in slow strokes up and down her spine, careful not to press against the wounds there. “Is your… condition – is it related to what this Jenna person does to you?”

“Doesn't much matter, does it?” The fretful rub of her fingers against his arm took the sting out of the words. “You're leaving. Nothing matters.”

“ _You_ matter,” Luke reminded her, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “The more I know, the more I can do to try to find a way to take you away from...” he couldn't bring himself to say “your owner.” “Him. Them. When I get back.”

Eventually, Senni said softly, “if you come back and you still remember me – still want me – I'll tell you. Why I'm defective. The details you want.”

“I'm not going to let anyone rub you out of my head.” There was a sound at the door and Senni sat bolt upright. Luke caught her before she could go barreling out of the bunk for a weapon. “It's all right! It's just Artoo.”

The door opened and the little droid rolled himself in, diligently re-locking it behind him. He tootled in greeting and roved a curious photo-receptive lens over Senni.

“Artoo, I need you to record something for me,” Luke said, guiding Senni off of him and rolling sideways to face the droid. Very intentionally, he tucked Senni against him, one arm possessively around her, the other braced on the bed so he could hold himself semi-upright on one elbow. “It has to be secure – deep memory core.” The droid chirped and Luke laced the fingers of his right hand with Senni's. “Only Senni has the authorization to delete it, understand?”

Both of them looked at him curiously, Senni twisted awkwardly to achieve it, but Luke held firm. Artoo warbled that he was ready. Luke looked directly at the droid's little dome to facilitate a clear, crisp recording.

“I am Commander Luke Skywalker, Rogue Leader of the Rebel Alliance,” he said, projecting absolute certainty. “This,” he dropped a kiss on Senni's shoulder, “is Senni. Survivor, wampa-slayer – and the woman I love.”

Luke felt Senni's astonishment in the way her body twitched against his, the grip of her hand as it balled around his fingers. “I'm leaving soon to become a Jedi. It is my utmost priority when I return to get my Cyar'ika out of captivity – to have her safe, with me. She's promised to watch for me, and to tell me everything I need to know about her condition when I return. I'm not going to get mind-rubbed, indoctrinated, or anything else that will interfere with that plan. End recording.”

Artoo trilled in confirmation. “Date stamp that,” Luke instructed. He met Senni's eyes. “Artoo is my friend,” he said. “His entire memory will have to wiped – he'd have to be _murdered_ – for that message to go away.” He softened, pleading just a little. “Now will you believe I'm coming back for you?”

Solemn green eyes, luminescent with tiny sparks of hope and wonder, met his. Then she shoved him onto his back, swung herself on back on top of him, and set about determinedly proving just how much that precious promise meant to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doctor Jenna Zan Arbor is an actual (awful) person in the GFFA, though she'd be getting up there in years by this point in the timeline. She did, in fact, kidnap and experiment on Jedi, and later have 'arrangements' with the Empire regarding her research. 
> 
> Bota is a rare drug that enhances one's connection to the Force, among other effects. The Hutts and Black Sun did at one point attempt to collude to control/market it much like they did other drugs. 
> 
> The symbol on Mara's slave chip looks like this: http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110601202161/starwars/images/thumb/6/62/StupidSithEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg/250px-StupidSithEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg.png


	7. Bespin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Mara are reunited, and Luke finally gets some answers.

Luke took another involuntary breath. Bubbles frothed out of the respirator lodged against his nose and mouth, the iridescent cascade obscuring his already cloudy view through the clear gel and convex transparisteel of the tank. He wrestled back the urge to thrash as his anxiety-compressed lungs were force-fed air and felt a few reflex-generated tears squeeze from his eyes as he shut them against the instinctive panic of not being in control of such a basic bodily function. 

_ You have to stay calm,  _ he told himself, over and over.  _You'll only make it worse._

On Hoth, when he'd been half of out his mind with delirium, they'd added paralytics to the bacta tank to restrict his violent movements. It had been for his own safety – he'd been in no condition to move that way and the tank had been of the absolute minimum size allowed by military regulation, leaving little room for anything but vapid floating. But he'd been only half-aware and sporadically hallucinating; the experience of finding himself inexplicably paralyzed, too, had been terrifying. Even cognizant and lucid he wasn't sure he could handle finding himself subdued like that again. He could barely cope with _now –_ the gag-inducing taste of the bacta (which Hobbie said was reminiscent of some fruit Luke had never seen called a 'pineapple') seeping around the respirator, eating away at his tongue and taste buds. The other-worldly, prickly-heat feeling that throbbed in his new – artificial – right hand, from fingertips to palm to wrist to the seam where it met his real skin. That Force-damned seam that made him nauseous to think about, that he couldn't quite get his eyes to focus on no matter how hard he tried. And, running through it all – running through _him,_ like a pin skewering a splayed flewt to a display board – the ghastly, inescapable truth of who he was. _What_ he was.

_ What are you? _

Obi-wan's leery question to Senni rang in his memory and Luke felt the pain of need like a spear through his gut. He yearned for her, the way he had once stood on the sands of Tatooine and yearned to be out among the stars. 

_ Senni.  _ Her name was an entreaty. An appeal for comfort, as a man ble eding out on an alien battlefield might cry out for his mother and, only half-aware, his soul screamed it into the Force. _Cyar'ika. Please._

“The Commander's readouts suggest that he is in a great deal of distress.” The 2-1B droid's perpetually even, unperturbed tones were distorted by the bacta. Luke felt like they were rippling toward him across an ocean, rather than only a meter of transparisteel and fluid. 

“I know.” Leia's voice was strained. “I can feel it.”

“It would be best if we sedated him until the end of the treatment.” 

_ No!!  _ Luke screamed in his head.  _No, please!_

“I agree.” Leia stepped closer, pressing her palm flat to the curved surface. “Rest, Luke. It'll be all right.”

Luke fought wildly as the sedatives poured in to his tubular liquid hell. _No. No. No!_ Slowly, the drugs took root, permeating his skin and sinking into muscle and bone until his body felt as if it were made of lead. His eyes slunk shut against his will.

Then there was nothing at all.

\- - 

Like all Nebulon-B class frigates, the _Redemption_ was comprised of two mismatched halves connected by a long, slender bridge that sprouted docking tubes like stubby tentacles at irregular intervals. The tail end of the frigate was a thick cube with static discharge veins sprouting from the bottom and a better-than-fleet-standard deflector-shield generator perched on top. The front half floated in space like a jellyfish, it's top a flattened bubble-ish dome that tapered as its many levels descended beneath to end in blunted point.

Refuge to more than seven hundred patients at any given time (and home to the multitude of skilled professionals who stitched them back together), the _Redemption_ was the crown jewel of the medical arm of the Alliance's forces. It boasted a 98% full recovery rate, with most patients returning to duty within days. 

Staring out the viewport of his tiny – but blessedly private – recovery room in the early hours of the morning, Luke wondered dully which percentage they'd attribute him to. He flexed his new hand, but couldn't bring himself to look down at it. Not that there'd be anything to see, really. It would look just like his other – it had been thoughtfully colored and textured to approximate the one he'd lost as closely as possible. The long sleeve of his loose, sand-colored tunic would cover the now invisible seam but, with the lights off and only faint starlight filtering through the shaded-over windows, it would have been cloaked in darkness anyway. 

Medically, he was only three, maybe four, days from being cleared. His body had accepted his new limb with more grace than his mind, and there was only minor fine-tuning and tutoring in self-maintenance to be completed before he could petition for release. Psychologically, he was confident that a little Jedi stoicism and the self-control Yoda had stuffed into him (one endlessly swampy jungle run at a time) would be enough to get through his eval and back on active duty. Technically, he supposed, he counted as another success story for the Rebel medical establishment. 

_ Does being the actual son of a Sith qualify as irreparable damage?  _ He sighed and leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the viewport frame.  _Can you really be considered whole if everything you've ever known was a lie?_

A wisp of a heads up in the Force fluttered by his ear and Luke automatically turned toward its source. He caught the faintest whiff of velanie blossoms and then his door – he was _sure_ he'd locked it – began to slot open. Before it even made it halfway, the slender form on the other side had slipped through and the door was snicking shut again. 

_ You're alone?  _ Even in his head her voice was hushed and there was a razor's edge to its reserve.

“Yes. Cyar'ika -.” Luke pushed off the wall, hurrying toward her with open arms. 

Senni slipped sideways, out of reach. Luke stopped, a sense of _wrong_ suddenly making his heart pound. She felt present in the Force, but deeply guarded. It wasn't a combination he was used to from her and he didn't like it.

“Do you want me to go?” The words were tight, spooling out tautly under an iron-fisted emotional grip.

“No!” Luke reached for her again, then yanked back, his gut knotting when he realized he'd used his right hand. Dropping that arm to his side as if it had abruptly gone dead, he tried to search her face in the darkness. “I know you can feel me. You have to know I missed you.”

Her body remained stiff, her expression impassive. She didn't answer right away; when she did, she didn't quite manage to keep the accusation out of her tone. “You called _her_ first.” 

Luke's right hand clenched and unclenched at his side. It itched to touch her – as if it were real, and that was a thing it could do – but it _wasn't_.  It _couldn't_ itch – not really – and h e didn't deserve to run that synth-flesh over her soft skin, to take comfort in her. He'd _left._ He'd made wild promises and gone running to the Jedi who considered her a deviant, deformed creature – and for what? What did he have to show for himself now? Just a stunning failure to protect everyone he loved, a half-finished quest to follow in the footsteps of an imaginary father he'd idolized, and the mantle of a heinous legacy yoked with suffocating weight on his shoulders. 

“ _Tell me_ ,” Senni demanded, harshly. “If they've changed your mind and you want the Princess instead just _tell me_ -.” 

_Never._ Luke darted forward, his left hand catching around her waist and his mouth capturing hers roughly. _It's not like that._

_ Tell me.  _

He could feel the conflict in her – the way her body refused to yield, muscles still primed for escape, even as her lips pressed fiercely back against his in barely-checked desire. 

“She was _there_ ,” Luke said in a rush, breaking the kiss only just enough to get the words out. “She was there, with the _Falcon,_ my only way out. You -,” he kissed her hungrily again, desperate that she understand. “I called for _you_ when we were in hyperspace and I _wanted_ -. When I was in bacta and needed -.”

Senni's cold outer shell cracked, relief gushing out as she yielded and then flowed almost instantly into demanding more of him. She teased his lips with her tongue and he welcomed it, reveling in the taste of her for a blissful second before he had the horrible thought that he probably still tasted like bacta. He lurched back, castigating himself for subjecting her to that, but her right arm came up and hooked around his neck, pulling him back into the kiss. At his side, her left hand groped until it found his prosthetic. Luke flinched as she grasped it, but felt powerless to stop her as she dragged it to her hip and pressed it there between the nerf-hide leather of her pants and her palm. 

_ I don't care about the hand _ . 

“It's not -,” Luke wrenched his mouth off of hers, gasping against the spiked words lodged in his chest. “Not just the hand. There's more. You have to know -.” 

“That Vader sired you? _I don't care._ ” 

He ga w ped at her, all the air rushing from his lungs in a stunned  _whoosh_ . “How did you -?” 

“You don't have any questions yet.” Her right hand snaked around to cover his mouth, her eyes gleaming with challenge. “Rules haven't changed, Skywalker.” 

For a moment, he hesitated, overwhelmed. She  _knew_ and  s he still wanted him. Unlike absolutely every other being he'd encountered since he'd he'd dropped off the  underbelly of Cloud City into the  _Falcon_ , she didn't want him to talk. To re-sunder the wound in his soul and bleed for the sake official reports, treatment protocols, or her own  understanding . Instead, she held out an invitation to escape. 

_ You have to tell me if its too hard,  _ he demanded, smothering her mouth with his fiercely. Both his hands slid hotly over her body, re-staking his claim to her lean, fluid curves.  _It's not totally calibrated – I won't know unless you tell me. Promise._

_ I can take anything you can give,  _ she volleyed back, boosting up on her toes as his hands caught her thighs and hauled her up, her legs wrapping tight around his waist. He turned them, trapping her between his training-hardened body and the wall, and ground himself against her in a way that made her whine with need. 

_ Promise, _ he commanded, his left hand scrabbling at the collar of her jacket and the tunic underneath, jerking the layers of fabric back until he could nip at her throat. 

Senni  arched against him, seeking friction and fisted her hands  i n his hair.  _Yes,_ she conceded on a  groan when he dipped his head lower and sucked at the delicate skin just above a breast. 

Luke loosed a low rumble of approval, then gave himself over to her.  To the abandon he'd dream ed of all those long, damp, lonely nights on Dagobah.  Carrying her to his bed he spilled her onto it, impetuously peeling her clothing off and flinging it away in all directions, greedy for the taste and feel of her skin. She helped where she could around his determined hands,  un buckling holsters until she was bare to him save for the flat golden  emblems embedded at her wrist. 

Skywalker's jaw ground as he stroked a thumb  over the skin just above it. “I hate that he marked you like this.” 

She started to pull the hand away, but he caught it – caught both her hands, and laced his fingers through her own as he pressed them back into the mattress beside her head. 

“You're angry,” she murmured in his ear as he nuzzled her throat. “You can – I'm here. I'll take it. So you don't have to carry it. I don't mind.” 

Luke's head dropped, his forehead resting on her collarbone .  “I don't want to take it out on you – not like that.” 

Her lips brushed the top of his head, her body curling up as far as she could against his hold to reach. “What do you want?” 

“To mark you,” he confessed, hoarsely. “As mine.” He shifted her hands to pin them above her head in a one-handed grip, watching through suddenly damp eyes as his right hand caressed down her throat and between her breasts. “It's not right. Not what a Jedi should want. But – I do.”

She didn't answer and he looked up to find breathtaking vulnerability painted across her face, her eyes large and bright in the darkness. 

“You won't leave me again?” she whispered. “If you mark me?” 

“Never again,” he vowed. 

She nodded  and there was a sensation of something unfolding – some inner core, deeply wrapped in layers and layers of protective barriers, being willfully bared. The trust implicit in that washed away Luke's guilt and self-loathing, leaving only pure, crystaline certainty in its wake.

He shoved upright long enough to divest himself of his own  sparse night clothes, then climbed  o nto the bed, parting her legs and settling himself between them.  Starting at her wrists, still resting loosely above her head, he worked his way down, agonizingly slow.  H ands, mouth, the Force – every part of him sought to inscribe his soul onto hers. 

The anger, pain, and grief that poisoned his s pirit found their outlet in the sensual torment he subjected her to as he seduced every inch of her body to its fullest pleasure, eking out cries and moans as he repeatedly took her to the edge of climax  and held her there ruthlessly before tipping her over into shattering bliss. She was vibrating against him, her sense suffuse with exhaustion bordering on wrung-out  as she came down from another peak ,  when he  finally gave in to his own need and pushed inside her. Their joining was as gentle as his claiming of her had been rough, their senses mingling and intertwining in way Luke hadn't imagined was possible.

“Cyar'ika.” Luke repeated the word, his voice low and affectionate in her ear as he rocked into her, steady and solid. “Beloved.” Senni buried her face in his shoulder as he pitched over the brink into his own release, emptying himself inside her until he was utterly spent. 

\- - 

Eventually, they stirred. Senni moved unsteadily as she gathered her clothing and folded it neatly onto a chair. Luke reclaimed his pants but found that Senni had  donned his shirt.  They'd kicked all the blankets off the bed in their fervor; Skywalker scooped one off the floor and  padded to the nondescript but well-stuffed chair in front of the viewport. Draping the blanket over his shoulders, he sat down. Without needing any more invitation, Senni climbed into his lap and let him close the blanket over them both. 

“Senni?” he asked quietly, after an easy, lingering silence. “What's your real name?” 

“Does it matter?” she asked, her head tucking a little further under his chin. “It's just a placeholder, like all the others. Not really special, just because it was the first.” 

“Everything I thought I knew was a lie,” Luke told her, swallowing hard. “I need this – _us_ – to be… not like that.”

Senni was very still for a while, then sighed. “Mara Jade.” 

Something in Luke's heart healed just a little at the confession. He stroked a hand down her shoulder in nonverbal thanks. “It's beautiful.”

“No, it isn't.” She shook her head against his chest, and he thought he could feel her gathering herself, trying to scrape together enough to give him what he needed from her. “You still want to know? The things I promised to tell you?” 

“Yes.”

Senni –  _ Mara _ – sat up,  stiffly . Getting off of his lap, she retrieved another blanket and curled up in the second chair, pulling her knees to her chest and swathing herself in the thick fabric.  Luke recognized the behavior – she'd pulled away from him on Hoth, too, when she confessed her inability to eat. It was instinctive, he thought – a shying away from anticipated ire. 

_ Something we'll have to change,  _ he told himself, trying to hold his eagerness for her explanations in check and centering himself against what he'd likely hear. 

“What did your Master teach you about midi-chlorians?” 

“Nothing.” Luke leaned forward with interest. “What are they?” 

“Nothing?” She looked at him askance. “What did he tell you about the source of your connection to the Force?” 

Luke tilted his head at the confusion faintly rippling off of her. “That the Force is in everything. It surrounds us, binds all living things together.” 

“That's it?” She pressed, dubiously. 

“Yes,” Luke resisted the absurd urge to smile. “Now come on, tell me about midchlorins.” 

“Midi-chlorians,” she corrected, automatically. “That's – that's an incredibly sloppy teaching methodology, Skywalker.” She frowned at him in consternation. “If all his teaching was like that it's no wonder -.” Her mouth snapped shut. I'm s _orry. I didn't mean -._

“It's all right,” Luke pushed the discomfort and self-recrimination away. “Tell me what you think he should have said.” 

“Midi-chlorians are microscopic life forms that live symbiotically inside the cells of all living things,” Mara recited, if repeating a well-learned lesson. “They're necessary, for all life, and the more of them you have, the more connected to the Force you are. Your average plant or nerf, for example, won't have more than they need to live.”

“But your average Jedi will have a lot,” Luke caught on, fascinated. 

Mara nodded, her expression tight. “After the Jedi were wiped out, those who remained went into hiding. Two of them made their home together, on Belassa.  They married and started a business, trying to stay under the radar. Vader found them anyway.” 

Dread settled over Luke like a lead cloak. 

Mara kept her eyes on his as she continued, as if drawing strength from him. “The woman was pregnant.” 

“With you,” Luke said softly, knowing he was right even before she nodded. 

“Vader took her to Jenna – Doctor Zan Arbor.” Mara shifted uncomfortably under the blanket. “The Old Jedi didn't have their own babies, as a rule, so there wasn't much information on record about how the Force worked during development – if  sensitivity could be induced, or prevented  – that sort of thing.” She lifted one shoulder and dropped it. “Jenna wanted to know, so she… experimented.”

“On your mother.” Luke propped his elbows on his knees and hung his head. Vader – his father – had handed a pregnant Jedi over to a mad scientist to be picked apart and tortured. 

“She would have been,” Mara allowed, a thin trickle of misery dripping from her sense in the Force. She pulled the blanket more tightly around herself. “She killed herself and left her body behind.”

Nausea rolled through Luke's stomach. “Left  _ you _ behind. In their hands.” 

“The first Jedi to reject me,” she  agree, melancholy . “They rigged the shell of her up to a dozen machines and used her as an organic incubator so they could keep experimenting.  They didn't learn much that was useful – not like they'd wanted to – but there were… consequences.” 

Luke lifted his head, his heart aching for her. “Your inability to eat? To touch the Force consistently?”

“Midi-chlorians live inside our cells. Every time our cells replicate – reproduce -they generate new midi-chlorians with them, always in the same proportion. But not in me. Without infusions of midi-chlorians from… serum… or a regenerative boost from the bota, what midi-chlorians I have die out. It's like starving, or bleeding out, slowly. Everything starts to shut down.” The fabric bunched as her hands fisted. “Mother and  fetus are supposed to share a blood flow – a consistent level of exposure and circulation before birth. I didn't get that. My body stripped certain systems – digestion, for one – of midi-chlorians entirely, trying to keep more crucial bits supplied. They're not sure why I can even have caff,” she shook her head. “I only know as much as I do because I've managed to hack bits and pieces of Jenna's files over the years. They don't – they don't feel obligated to tell me a lot.” 

“I'm so sorry, Cyar'ika.” Luke hesitated, feeling a prod from the Force, but reluctant to follow its lead. “The second Jedi to reject you… it was your father, wasn't it?” 

“He came, when they extracted me. He called me Mara Jade – bitter stone –  because it was me growing in his  wife 's belly that cost  her her  chance to stay with him . Then… he gave me away. To my owner. To be made of use  and kept out of his sight .” Her tone stayed quiet and level, but old pain soaked the words in the Force. She lifted her chin slightly and made herself finish. “He's an Inquisitor, now.  Second in command of the I n quisitorious.” 

Shock plowed through Luke like the solid projectile of an old-fashioned slug thrower – and then what she was trying to say was starkly and beautifully clear, like sunshine through a stained glass window, leaving his soul awash with color and light. 

She'd meant it when she said she didn't care about Vader. Because she knew – the way possibly no one else ever could – what  it felt like  to be descended from evil. How little it meant about who  _you_ really were. Luke tipped his head  until his chin nearly touched his chest, an awful weight that he'd carried since Bespin unwinding, like a python releasing its prey, and slither ing off his shoulders. 

“ _Thank you,_ ” he breathed. 

\- - 

Mara slipped into the 'fresher out of sight while the service droid delivered a carafe of caff. As soon as the door shut again, Luke heard the sanisteam start and felt an invitation ripple against his mind. He wasted no time in accepting. Afterward, they shared a mug of caff as they dressed. 

Luke was buckling his belt when Mara cocked her head, listening. “Someone is coming,” she advised, one hand going to the knives at the small of her back. “Strong in the Force. Unhappy.” 

“Leia,” Luke said. He reached out, catching her fingers, pulling them away from her weapons and squeezing gently – or at least he hoped it was gently. He really needed the rest of the calibrations done sooner rather than later. Still, he couldn't help but marvel slightly at how thoroughly unfazed Mara was by his new hand – or at just how much her acceptance had subconsciously eased his own. 

“The Princess you stole. Do you want me to stay out of sight?” 

“I didn't _steal_ her,” Luke gave her a wry look. “It was a rescue mission. And no, I want her to meet you.” 

Mara looked at him doubtfully and picked up the mug of caff. “It's your head.” 

The annunciator chime sounded and Luke walked over to open the door. 

“They lost him,” Leia announced without preamble, charging into the room when Luke stepped aside. “He just _disappeared –_ completely off the radar. We've got nothing. He could be taking Han anywhere!” She stopped short when she saw Mara. “Who are you?” 

“Leia,” Luke put a hand on her shoulder. By the look she shot at it, he knew she hadn't missed the fact that it was the first time he'd willingly touched her with his prosthetic. He smiled. “I'd like you to meet Mara. My cyar'ika and wampa-slayer – the love I thought I lost on the Death Star.” 

Leia glanced from one to the other, her eyes narrowing. Luke could almost see pieces coming together in her head. 

“She's the mystery girlfriend,” the Princess said sharply after a few seconds. “The one you were covering for, on Echo Base.” 

“Yes,” Luke stepped around his friend and moved to the low table between the chairs where the tray with caff was and poured her a mug, doctoring it the way she liked. Carrying it back, he held it out. “I called for her, in the Force, while I was in bacta.” He glanced lovingly at Mara. “And she came.” 

Leia took the proffered cup, her brows knitting suspiciously as she regarded the other woman. “You're not a member of the Rebellion.” It wasn't a question. 

“No.” Jade sipped her caff, feigning casualness that didn't jive with the wariness Luke felt from her in the Force. 

“How did you get here?” Organa demanded. “This is a highly secure facility!”

“'Secure' is a relative term.” Mara raised an eyebrow. “You were saying something about having lost someone, when you came in?” 

Leia glared at her, but rounded on Luke. “They've lost Han. The bounty hunter disappeared. Lando thinks he'll turn up, but every day that we don't get him back the more likely it becomes that he'll suffer permanent damage from the carbonite!” 

“Carbonite?” 

Luke's shoulders slumped. “You know about the lure my – Vader, used?” 

“The carbonite was supposed to be for you.”

“Yeah,” Luke said, “only it wasn't really meant for humans, so he decided to test it on Han. Then handed him over to some bounty hunter – we're not sure why, or where he took him. We had a lead -,” his expression pinched as he looked back down into Leia's distraught face. “But I guess we just lost it.”

Luke could feel Leia like a tiny inferno in the Force, fuming and wracked with anxiety. He had a feeling he knew what was coming and swallowed back the whumph of pain when she opened her mouth and proved him right. 

“Isn't there anything 'Jedi' you can do?” 

_ I thought there would be _ , he thought, despairingly.  _I thought I could help. None of this was supposed to happen this way._ “No,” he admitted, ashamed. “Or if there is, I didn't learn it yet.  _I'm sorry._ ” 

“It's not your fault.” Leia's voice was tight, but the hand she laid on his arm told him she meant it. Still, it hurt badly to know he'd failed her – failed Han. Again. 

“He's important to you.” 

Mara's voice, low and contemplative, started them both. 

“Captain Solo is a valuable asset to the Alliance -,” Leia started, ferociously. 

Luke cut her off with a hand to the shoulder. “Yes,” he answered, plainly. Mara had withdrawn into herself and he tried to feel around the edges of her collapsing Force presence. “He's a friend, and we need to get him back.” 

Mara dropped her eyes and stared into her mug, swirling it twice the way Luke had once watched an old seer do on Tatooine with a cup of tea leaves. Then she sighed and leaned over to set the mug down on the tray. “I can find him for you.”

“And just how do you think you're going to do that?” The Princess demanded, the hand not holding her mug going to her hips, everything in her stance a challenge. 

“It'll be in Vader's files.” Mara straightened and looked meaningfully at Luke. “I've found other heavily classified information that way.”

“No.” It came out of its own accord, everything in Luke rebelling against the idea. _You just got here. I need you. It isn't safe. If he catches you -._ It didn't bear thinking about, what they'd do to her if she was caught. 

Leia made a disgusted noise. “You can't hack Vader's files,” she spat. “We've been trying for years! There are dozens of firewalls, hidden alarms –.” 

Mara pulled back her sleeve and held her wrist out, the gold there gleaming in the starlight that came through the view port. “Perhaps you simply haven't tried the right methods to get close enough.” 

Leia sucked in a breath, held it, then let it out very slowly. “You're a slave.” She searched Mara's face, her voice softening just slightly. “Owned by a high-ranking Imperial, I presume?”

Jade nodded and tugged her sleeve down. She looked to Luke. “Who is operating the  _Falcon_ in Solo's absence?” 

“Chewie. But Mara, I don't -.”

“You need him back,” she interrupted. Then, more quietly, “I can feel it. I can do this.” She turned to Leia. “Will he listen to you? Chewbacca?” 

“Yes,” Leia said at once. Her face became a mask of determination. “What do you need?”

“Private comm codes. And a ride.” 

“Come with me.” Leia stopped and Luke felt her gaze settle on him. “On second thought, I'll go first. Meet me at the entrance to the docking ring when you're ready.” 

Luke didn't move until Leia was gone, then went directly to Mara and pulled her against him. “I don't want you to go. It's too dangerous. There's so much we haven't talked about, yet -.” 

“If I don't, she'll just end up finding a way to send you after Solo – probably half blind.” Mara's arms snuck up around him. “It's better this way. I know what I'm doing.” 

Luke held tighter. “I was supposed to come back strong enough to take care of you,” he murmured. “To get you out.” 

“You might still,” she pointed out, slipping out of his arms. “Just not today.” She kissed him, long and soft, her aching desire to stay splashing over him in the Force before she gathered herself in, again. “Take care of yourself, Skywalker.” 

“Mara.” His voice was hushed and thick and she stopped near the door. “Promise me you'll come back.” 

She gave him a tiny smile. “Have to kill me to keep me away.”

\- - 

Luke was back on active duty when the message came, forwarded to him by Lando and Chewie: _Jabba's Palace. Tatooine._

A schematic was attached, hand-scribbled notes showing where the crime lord had mounted Solo on a wall as the tackiest of revenge décor. 

Leia took one look at it and instantly forgave Luke for hiding Mara, smuggling her onto Echo Base, and every other misdemeanor he'd ever committed. The plot to rescue Han hurtled into motion. 

\- - 

A week passed, and Luke hoped every day that he'd turn around and she'd be there – just appear out of the blue, as was her habit. 

Instead, another message came from the _Falcon,_ where Lando and Chewie were doing legwork on how to get into the Palace.

_Something set off the alarms this morning. Found an Imperial tracking device in one of the smuggling compartments. Fried all to hell – still smoking. Short message burst_ _came_ _through_ _with the destruct code. We'll let you know what it says when we_ _salvage_ _it._

Luke's world went grey and he nausea swept over him. He didn't need to know what it said. There was only one reason Mara would destroy her link to the _Falcon –_ to him. 

Confirmation came two days later, anyway. Lando's regret and sympathy ran so deep they seemed to cling to the very flimsey the words were printed on. 

_Final message reads:_ _Not going to make it back. Don't be mad at me, Farmboy._

_ \- -  _

Luke dreams of locks and bars. Of gnawing hunger and dull, endless pain. Of a giant room, lit only by the light of the stars gleaming off a long, wide set of shallow, heavily-polished stairs. He's never seen them before; just as he has never heard the cackle that whispers through his nightmares every night, now, from an unseen mocker. 

He understands, in a way he cannot explain, that these nightmares are not really his. They are hers, and she is living them somewhere far beyond his grasp. He tries – _pushes_ himself – to reach across the distance between them (to offer her his strength, or to plead with her to tell him where she is) but he can never reach quite far enough. 

Every night, the dreams get shorter. Hazier. Every morning, he wakes in darkness, his heart hammering with the knowledge that he's lost a little more of his connection to her. 

Until, one night, he finds he no longer dreams of her at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mara's father is loosely based on Feris Olin (a friend of Obi-wan Kenobi's).


	8. Endor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poodoo hits the turbofan.

He shouldn't detour. He'd almost certainly be the last one to the _Tibereon_ as it was. Promising himself he'd hurry, Luke turned sharply off the corridor that led to where the stolen Imperial shuttle waited, hitching his pack a little higher on his shoulder as he went. His camouflage poncho clearly marked him as part of the ground assault team and people nodded gravely and wished him luck – _may the Force be with you, Sir –_ as he passed. 

_It's always with me._ He nodded polite acknowledgment and kept going. _I'd give anything for it to be with **her** right now. _

As always, the Intel Ops Center was dimly lit and full of hushed voices murmuring urgently. Aides and messenger droids scuttled back and forth, barely glancing at him as he slipped by. Galwen – a young bothan with warm chestnut-hued fur – looked up as he approached, pulling his headset down around his thick neck and wrapping a paw around its mouthpiece.

“Anything?”

“Just more dead ends, Commander,” Galwen shook his fuzzy head. “If there is a Doctor Zan Arbor, she's buried under at least four layers of false fronts and shell companies. No chatter on any of our channels about your friend.” He injected some hope into his expression. “We'll keep looking, though. Maybe you guys taking out the Death Star will shake some new info loose. “

“I think it'll shake a lot more than that,” Skywalker reflected. He dredged up a half smile. “Thanks.”

A moment later he was back en route to the hangar, his shoulders set firmly against the heavy desire to slump.

_Nothing._

Lando and Chewie had disassembled the tracker Mara had used to its smallest components hoping to find something they could salvage, some way to reverse engineer even part of her coding or transceiver signal. They'd ended up chucking the whole thing for scrap – it had been fried beyond their collective best efforts, a testament to Mara's dedication to protecting her lover.

Yoda, in the hours before dying, had said only that she had passed beyond the reach of the Force and “no more is it possible to know.” Alliance Intel had riffled through every database, put the word out to every agent in search of a wrist pin matching the description of Mara's or architecture of the sort he'd seen through her eyes. They'd scoured Belassa's records, maps, and traffic when Luke mentioned that she'd been held there before. Luke himself had spent hours in meditation, striving for clarity – answers – _something_.

All leads remained cold as the grave. Mara had simply vanished.

\- -

Luke's stormtrooper escorts disappeared into the cockpit of the meticulously kept Lambda class T4-a shuttle, leaving father and son alone in viscous silence.

_No,_ Luke thought, sinking with quiet, straight-backed dignity into one of the passenger bucket seats on the port side. That hope had been lost, evaporating into the steam of Endor's jungle on an open bridge less than half a standard hour ago. _M_ _y father is truly dead._

Vader did not sit, pacing instead like a caged animal. His presence in the Force was as violent and wild as a solar storm, snapping and crackling with heat and rage. Luke withdrew from it, centering himself in his own connection to the Force. There would be no redemption tonight, but there could still be victory. He had only to keep the Sith distracted. Keep them occupied while his friends took out the shield generator. Until the Fleet arrived and blew them all into the afterlife together. He was ready. 

\- -

He knew this place.

Recognition and surprise hissed up Luke's spine and stung his brain as he exited the turbolift. keeping pace with Vader. He knew those steps. The starlight splashed across them by those same enormous, round view ports. He'd seen them in his dreams – in _her_ dreams.

Every nerve in his body sang with tension. The Dark was pungent here; concentrated and greasy in an eldritch counterpoint to the minimalistic lines and antiseptic cleanliness of Imperial architecture. Luke kept his back ramrod straight and lifted his chin, measuring his steps and reinforcing his shields. He would not be distracted, or show weakness. Could not be careless of his words or his thoughts as he faced down the creature that had warped and twisted the galaxy, murdered his father, and – it seemed – played some role in Mara's torment.

Two sets of boots clicked to a stop at the top of the stairs. A whisper of sound slunk through the muffled silence of the cavernous room as the throne rotated.

“Welcome, young Skywalker. I have been expecting you. You'll no longer need those.” The binders clanked to the floor. “Guards. Leave us.” Sulfurous eyes gleamed under a dark hood. “I am looking forward to completing your training. In time, you will call me Master.”

His opponent's arrogance was so grossly overblown that Luke had to suppress a mocking smile. “You're gravely mistaken. You won't convert me as you did my father.”

“Oh, no, my young Jedi. You will find that it is you who are mistaken. About a Great. Many. Things.”

\- -

“Your Fleet is lost, and your friends on the Endor moon will not survive. There is no escape, my young apprentice.”

Luke's chest heaved as he struggled for control. How had the tables turned so quickly? How was he failing them – all of them – _again?_

_Already learned, have you, that which you need._

He hadn't. Hadn't learned what he needed at all. If he struck the Emperor down in hate, he'd fall into Darkness. If he refused to fight, his father would kill him – just as his friends, his Squad, his _family_ were being massacred out there. Pointlessly, ignobly slaughtered.

He spun with a cry, flinging out his hand. His light saber slapped into his palm, igniting even as he swung.

\- -

The red blade arced past him and Luke took his opening. Kicking out high and hard with all the anger balled in his gut, he sent Vader tumbling down the stairs to land heavily at the bottom.

Behind him, the Emperor hissed with filthy glee. “Good! Use your aggressive feelings, boy! Let the hate flow through you!”

Shame scorched through Luke. _You can't give in. This isn't how you win._ He shut down his saber.

At the foot of the stairs, Vader rose, his own weapon still humming his hand. “Obi-wan has taught you well.”

Luke shook his head and clipped his saber to his belt in defiance. “I will not fight you, Father.”

Vader stalked up the stairs but Luke held his ground. If this was his end, so be it. He would die with a Jedi's honor. He was not afraid.

His father stopped three steps down and looked over Luke's shoulder. From behind him, he heard the Emperor's depraved voice, inflection flattening to a particularly maleficent note at the end.

“If you will not fight for yourself, then perhaps you will fight for _her_.”

Luke turned, his brow furrowing, then – remembering the rancor's pit at Jabba's – took a quick step back as a slot in the floor opened at Palpatine's feet. There was an almost inaudible whir as a platform rose through the gap. The inconsistent light caught first its sharp corners and the slatted durasteel bars splattered with rusty smears. The platform stopped level with the floor. Within the flat, roughly square gibbet anchored to it, a slender body lay limp and still. Starlight kissed a fall of red-gold silk and glinted off a bit of gold in one blood-crusted wrist – and Luke realized with heart-pounding fury what he was looking at.

“Mara!” Luke threw himself forward, oblivious to the jarring pain of his knees slamming down onto the top step.

Jade lay on her side, her right hand wedged between the bars near the lock. Her wrist was ripped and torn from where she'd obviously tried repeatedly to pick her way out. Her skin was colorless and there was a terrifying rattle to her short, shallow breaths. Painstakingly gently, Luke manipulated her hand, easing it safely back inside. Then he shoved his index and middle fingers through the bars at the latch. Curling them around the lock, he pulled on the Force and _yanked_. The grated panel snapped off and he flung it away – hurled it with a flash of petulance toward Vader, who batted it aside with undisguised displeasure – reaching inside immediately to touch her. He had just slid a hand under one arm, prepared to carefully turn her onto her back, when a humming red blade materialized at his throat. Luke glared up into the blank obsidian eyes of his father's mask.

“Your feelings for her are strong,” Vader rumbled, disapproval rolling off of him. “It was foolish of you to mark her as your own.”

“Now, Lord Vader,” the Emperor reproved, mildly. “Our young apprentice is to be commended. It takes great power to initiate a soul bond. And ingenuity to manage it without instruction.”

Confusion swirled through Luke to be quickly replaced with a chaotic morass of thrill and horrified guilt. He'd set out to mark her the last time they'd been together – to inscribe his devotion onto her, and she'd _welcomed_ it. That the Sith could tell meant the connection they'd felt hadn't been a whim or a fantasy; they'd somehow been wildly successful, forging a genuine link beyond what he'd known was possible, a… _soul bond_.

And then he'd _sent her back_. Let her waltz back into the ultimate gundark's nest, flippantly graffitied with a flashy neon 'kriff you' to her Imperial master, knowing she'd be in Vader's vicinity – Vader, who had chased his son's Force signature across the galaxy for years and would know it anywhere.

_I'm so sorry, Cyar'ika._ Slowly, Luke forced his fingers to pull away from Mara's body.  _I should never have let you go. I'll get us out of here, just – hold on for me, a little longer._ He l eaned back, away from the cage and the still-humming red blade, and  slowly  rose to his feet. He gathered his sense tightly back into himself, packing it down and in, away from view. 

“What have you done to her?”

He already knew. He'd felt her, beaten and starving, in his dreams but the question bought the time he needed to reassert his control.

The Emperor smiled, an ugly, wicked curving of thin, bloodless lips. “I've abided by our arrangement,” he replied, his tone a fetid mockery of innocence. “When she is good, she is fed. When she is not, well...” he trailed off in a politician's mildly dismayed regret.

Luke's stomach lurched as the pieces slammed into place, leaden and caustic in his chest. His head swam and he cursed himself for not figuring it out the instant he recognized the room. _This_ was Mara's 'owner'. She'd defied the _emperor of the galaxy_ to come to him – to bond with him.

Palpatine carried on, conversationally, “I must say, you were very... _creative_ in swaying my little pet to your side. Combining physical pleasure with sustenance – very clever indeed.” He raised a hand and swirled two fingertips. A lock of Mara's hair rippled, coiling as though it were being twined around skeletal fingers.

Luke's skin crawled and he locked his muscles against the gut instinct to force the vile touch away from Mara's vulnerable form. _They're trying to make you lose control. Hold your ground, or you'll be no good to her._

“I imagine,” the Emperor continued, “it was even more gratifying than the way I feed her.” 

An image was thrust into Luke's mind, spreading like an oil slick – Mara, kneeling at the Emperor's feet. Her hands gripped her wrists tightly behind her back. Her face was perfectly expressionless, but her eyes were dark wells of shame and self-loathing. The Emperor held a desiccated wrist to her lips, thin blackish blood dripping onto her tongue.

Luke shoved the image – and the Dark – out of his head, gasping for air and biting his tongue against the obscenities trying to spill off it. Savage wrath bubbled out of him like lava overflowing a volcanic vent.

“ _Good_ ,” the Emperor hissed. “Embrace your hate.”

_Blood,_ Luke thought, dumbfounded and raging at his own  witlessness. Mara had told him on the _Redemption_ that she needed 'infusions' of midi-chlorians. Midi-chlorians that existed and replicated in _blood_. And, apparently, _other_ bodily fluids.  Force, how could he have been so stupid? He'd thought it was just the touch, the attention, that made her feel better – that made her so insistent on kriffing him before anything else every visit. He wondered, fleetingly, how long it had taken her to make the connection herself – if she even had. 

“If I'd known,” Palpatine waved a hand, still rambling with feigned carelessness, “that she could be sustained through such… intimacies, I'd have handed her care over to my Inquisitors years ago.”

“Aarrgh!” Luke's control splintered. He jumped backward, his blade snapping to hand and swinging up.

Vader's caught it on his own blade and the air of the throne room combusted as Light and Dark clashed anew.

_ \- -  _

Behind a pillar in the lower level of the throne room, Luke panted, staring overhead at the underside of the corrugated decking above. 

_ Blood.  _

His brain lodged on the word, screaming it on a repeating loop. That was all Mara needed. Force-strong blood, that  _ he had _ . That he'd happily pour out for her in abundance. 

_ Why didn't you tell me?  _

_ Maybe she would have,  _ h is brain answered itself . If Leia hadn't shown up with the news that they'd lost track of Han. If he and Mara had been able to finish their caff, just the two of them, and he'd ask ed more questions -. 

_ I shouldn't have let you go.  _ Luke knew she couldn't hear him, but the words bubbled out of his soul anyway.  _I'm here, now, cyar'ika, and I'll not leave you again._

\- -

Darth Vader prowled through the under-level of the throne room. “You cannot hide forever, Luke.”

“I will not fight you.”

“Give in the Dark side,” Vader cajoled, his vocoder rumbling at its lowest setting. “It is the only way you can save your friends. Your mate.”

Luke closed his eyes. Clamped down hard on his shields.

“End this foolishness,” his father coaxed, “and our Master will permit you to feed her. To end her suffering.”

Luke wondered churlishly if they expected him to slit a wrist or to kriff her unconscious body on the throne room floor for their entertainment. Bile churned acidly in his stomach at the thought and he let it go. Focused on his shields, his grip on the Force. He had to keep them busy – keep them distracted – until the deflector shield came down and the Fleet moved in.

Vader was growling again in the darkness. “Very well. If her suffering means so little to you, then perhaps it is time I indulge in the retribution I promised her.” The Sith turned on his heel and stalked toward the stairs. Above them, there was a bang and clattering cascade as the rest of the gibbet was ripped apart and skittered away across the floor.

“No!” Luke dove from his cover.

Red and green bars of light hissed and snapped in murderous blows as they chased each other around the throne room. Luke abandoned his control. Plummeted into the depths of the Force and moved on instinct alone. Dark streamers of power ran alongside the outpouring of light as it flooded through him.

At the bridge that connected the turbolift tower to the chamber, Vader went down under a blizzard of pounding blows. It wasn't until the Emperor's cackling pierced his consciousness that Luke realized what he'd done. Stopped, chest heaving. Took real stock of the space around him. Of his own sweat-soaked body, flushed with strain and emotion. Of Vader, air whistling through his mechanical lungs, the stump of his right arm smoking. The Emperor, creeping down those damn stairs, his wizened face alight with triumph.

And Mara, at the top of the stairs. Finally out of the Emperor's sight and conscious. Grappling silently against disorientation and weakness to push up onto her elbows.

“Now,” Palpatine crowed. “Fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!”

Luke gulped for air, felt the coolness of environmentally controlled air across the back of his neck and the deeper chill of Darkness swirling around his ankles. The world realigned around him, clarity sinking in and banishing everything but calm. He knew what he had to do. To say.

“Never.” He thumbed the ignition switch and his blade hissed off. He tossed it aside. Made his stand alone and unarmed, utterly reliant on the Force as his ally. “I'll never turn to the Dark side.” Luke drew himself up, a fighter pilot's pride and disdain flaring. He could almost feel the light that sprang to his eyes in companionship with smirk that flickered to his face. “You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

“So be it, _Jedi_.” The Emperor's face had gone ghastly, cruel beyond reckoning. “If you will not be turned, then you will _be destroyed_!”

The world detonated in a purple-blue miasma of pain. Luke's body spasmed, his skin searing as every muscle contracted and then pulsated spastically under the assault. Dark-drenched lightening crackled from Palpatine's fingertips. The Jedi was barely aware of being thrown backward until the racking paused and he found himself slumped over, struggling to stay upright, staticky light playing across his vision. 

“ Young fool,” Palpatine sneered,  his voice tinny and distant in Luke's ears . “Only now, at the end, do you understand.” 

Pain.  Skywalker was swallowed whole by m ind-splitting agony . “Father! Please!” 

Time distorted and Luke felt death gliding through the shadows of the chamber,  stalking him.

A shriek a rage split the air.  T he lightening snapped away. 

Luke lolled against the rail  and  suck ed air into  charred lungs.  S quint ed against the afterimages burned into his retinas, body quivering.

Mara's bone-white fingers were hooked like claws into the Emperor's sleeve. Her hands latched in a death grip on his arm, her weight holding it down. A hellish light show lashed in a ball around her as Palpatine redirected his fury. Her bones flared ghoulishly into visibly incandescent stains on her glowing, nearly translucent skin as the Dark energy fried her alive. 

A sliver of Luke's brain made out Vader standing to his Master's right, his massive bulk hunched over. There was something distinct– something Luke's pain-addled mind couldn't find a word for – in the way the Sith's head tilted at Jade as she clung tenaciously, lodging her body between the Emperor and the man she loved. 

“Gah!” With a shout of disgust and a kick of the Force, Palpatine slung Mara away from him. 

She hit the ground with a grisly thud and rolled. Momentum kept her going until she hit Luke's feet, sprawling onto her back, the rattle of her breath now treacherously wet. Blood trickled from her nose and split lip. Her eyes slitted open, struggling to focus on him. 

“C'rika.” Luke slurred, sliding down until he slumped beside her, his hand fumbling for hers. 

The lightning came again, snapping and writhing over and between them. Tears blurred Luke's eyes and, with the last of his strength, he cried out one last time. “Father! Help! Please!”

There was another scream. Luke jerked his head up. Tried to blink sight back into his eyes. Caught frenzied flashes between crackling bolts. Vader, with the Emperor raised over his head. Surrounded by lightning, his suit's systems frying and sparking and spitting. He turned at the last moment, his melting faceplate fixed on Luke. 

“You were right,” he wheezed. “You were right about me.” 

Then he leaned backward, his weight and the Emperor's taking them cleanly over the railing and down the ventilator shaft. Luke folded himself over Mara as a blast of energy, equal halves Dark and Light, hurtled up and erupted around them. 

Everything faded. Luke drifted in and out of consciousness. 

The blare of a siren broke into his awareness, injecting his sluggish mind with urgency. _Have to move._

Pushing himself up with stiff, cramping hands, Luke sat on his heels. Taking a deep breath, he hauled himself to his feet. The siren changed pitch and adrenaline surged, giving him a much-needed boost as an automated voice calmly instructed all personnel to evacuate. Pulling on the Force for energy and stability, Luke hiked Mara over his shoulder and staggered for the lift.

\- - 

The landing platform on which Luke had surrendered to Vader – seemingly a lifetime ago, now – was abandoned. He maneuvered the stolen shuttle smoothly into the center of the pad and shut it down. Unstrapping himself, he headed for the back, stopping in the little vestibule that connected the cockpit and the hold to retrieve a medkit from the emergency support cabinets.

Hard as it had been to let her out of his sight even briefly, for her own safety he had strapped Mara onto the first bench seat along the starboard wall of the hold. Now he opened the kit and set it on the floor. Unfastening the straps, he carefully eased her up enough that he could slide onto the bench. With his back to the cockpit-side wall, he adjusted until she reclined against him, her back to his chest, the back of her head over his heart. Reaching down, he flipped the kit open. 

With grim efficiency, he plucked a perigen patch and the pneumatic dispenser of a stim-shot out of their brackets. Pushing Mara's tunic up, he bit back an oath at the green and yellow bruising that climbed up her ribs, peeled the backing off the patch, and applied it to her side. Perigen was a non-narcotic painkiller, absorbed through the skin. He didn't know if it would work on Jade, given her unique anatomy, but without something she'd be in agony when she woke and he felt it best to try. 

Discarding the backing, he pushed up his sleeve, picked up the stim shot, and injected it into his right arm just above the seam of his prosthetic. He had no idea if having a stimulant in his bloodstream would be a problem, either, but the adrenaline of their escape was wearing off and he needed to stay sharp and focused until he knew Mara would be all right. Tossing the empty dispenser back into the kit, he found a sterile wipe and ripped the packet open. Rolling his left sleeve past his elbow, Luke swiped the antiseptic over his forearm and across Mara's lips. It almost certainly wasn't necessary, but with her current condition he didn't dare take unnecessary chances. 

Taking a deep breath, he pulled a lancet from the kit and cut a short slit in his left forearm, just above the wrist. He squeezed his hand into a fist to make the blood well faster, then tipped Mara's head back and propped her mouth open with a thumb. Resting his arm against her lips, he let the blood drip down her throat. He cringed a little, thinking that if he tasted anything like he felt, she'd be getting a brackish mouthful of liquid roughly the flavor of badly charred nerf steak. But there was no help for it. 

While he waited for some kind of sign that this was working, Luke tilted his head back and cautiously let the reality and enormity of the last few hours trickle through his mind. His father had saved him – saved them. And Mara… Mara was free, and she didn't need anything he couldn't give her. Luke curled forward and pressed a kiss to the top of her tangled hair. 

Mara twitched, her head moving against his arm, and gurgled. One hand came up, scrabbling at his arm, and Luke caught it gently in his right hand. 

“Shh,” he soothed. “It's all right. It's just me. We're safe, but I need you to drink for me.”

She twisted and coughed, spitting up a small amount of blood that dribbled down her chin. Luke reluctantly pulled his arm away to give her room and pulled his tunic sleeve over the fingers of his right hand to wipe the blood from her chin.

Mara dragged bleary eyes open and blinked at him.

“Hey,” he smiled down at her, shifting her so that she leaned higher on his shoulder and a little to the side so she didn't have to look at him upside down. 

“Luke,” she garbled. Then her face fell as her brain caught up and her right hand fumbled for his tunic, fingers catching the fabric weakly. “Hurt… you.” 

“I'm fine,” he promised, “But you're not going to be if you don't eat for me.” He offered his arm again. 

She looked at it, then at him, the same way she had in the _Falcon's_ tiny sanisteam before he'd left for Dagobah – deep longing and terrified uncertainty. 

“Come on,” he prompted. “Open up.”

“Hurt you,” she rasped, fretfully.

“You don't think it will hurt me even more if you die in my arms right now?” 

She didn't have an answer for that and hesitantly let him bring his arm back to her mouth. At first, she lay very still, her body tense and stressed, eyes darting around anxiously, unable to settle. Luke searched for something to distract her. “You missed a hell of a time at Jabba's.”

Mara softened as he recounted the story,  and he hurried to embellish details and add commentary  to draw it out. He considered the effort richly rewarded when her eyes slipped shut and  she started to suckle lightly, one hand sneaking up to nudge his arm to a better position. When he finished his tale, she lapped at his cut with her tongue, then pulled  his arm away,  clumsily pressing the palm of a still-stiff hand over the wound. 

Her eyes searched his, still bloodshot and bruised, but a little clearer. “You're not… revolted? By this.”

The _b_ _y me, now that you know_ went unspoken but was written plainly across her face.

Luke pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It's just eating, Jade. Not even half as bad as what Gammoreans consider normal.” He gave her a cheeky half-smile. “Keeping doing that thing with your tongue and I might even get turned on in a hurry – when we're not both half-dead.”

She scowled up at him suspiciously and Luke wiggled his arm to draw her attention back. “You should eat some more. That can't have been enough after so long.”

Mara ignored the suggestion, the suspicion in her expression shifting back toward anxiety. “I was going to tell you. On the med ship,” she whispered. “About.. everything. I didn't realize -.”

“I'm not angry.” Deciding he wasn't going to get any more into her at the moment, Luke took a bacta patch out of the medit and slapped it over the cut. “What didn't you realize?” 

“That I was -,” she winced, guiltily. “Feeding on you. When we were together. I just thought -.” 

She twisted her hands in front of her and Luke slid one of his own hands down to stop her. Feeling every ache and burn in his body, he shifted their positions until she sat sideways in his lap, her head snuggled against his shoulder, his cheek against her hair. 

“There was only ever _him_ ,” Mara whispered, her voice raw. “I didn't know if -,” her words stumbled, and her voice dropped. “If it was just _any_ midi-chlorians, like Jenna suggested, or...” she closed her eyes and forced the words out. “Vader always said it was the Dark in it, keeping me alive. Animating me like his other monsters.” 

“Oh, Cyar'ika,” Luke sighed, cuddling her to him. His heart bled for the lies and fears Mara had been force-fed with every drop of sustenance she'd ever gotten. 

“I didn't want to do this to you,” she groused into his shoulder. “Make you feel obligated. I can -.” 

“You can stay with me,” Luke interrupted, firmly. “Unless you don't want to.” He skimmed a palm up and down her thigh, slowly, reassuringly. Maybe just a _hint_ suggestively. “I can feed you – I _want_ to feed you. And,” he ducked his head down to catch her eyes. “According to a rather well-informed source, we seem to have started something called a 'soul bond'.” His lips quirked. “Sounds pretty serious.” 

She gazed back at him solemnly. “It's not finished yet,” she admitted. “I heard them talking about it while I was… confined. It's still...reversible. You don't have to break your vows to the Jedi.” 

Luke's heart clenched. “Do you want to reverse it?” 

She looked startled. “No! I just – your vows.” 

Luke shook his head. “I'm the only Jedi, now, Jade. The 'first of the new', as Ben puts it.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don't believe that you're the gargoyle the Emperor told you that you were, and I don't believe there's any reason why loving you – _being_ with you – should conflict with my being a Jedi. I promised I'd never leave you again.” Luke swallowed his nervousness and regarded her seriously. “Will you promise me the same?” 

Mara fumbled to push herself up, her muscles twinging against his arm at the effort, and kissed him. Fervently. Passionately.

Luke returned the kiss, unconcerned by the lingering tang of his blood on her tongue. She was _his_ and they were both alive and _safe_. Joy and hope sloshed through him, overflowing and pouring out into the Force in gratitude. 

Until Mara's equilibrium gave out and she wobbled dangerously. 

Luke chuckled ruefully against the kiss and eased her back until she sat on the bench in front of him. “If we intend to finish the bond the way we started it, we might have to hold off a couple days.” 

“Maybe not here,” Mara agreed, eyes drifting over the shuttle. “It lacks ambiance.” 

Luke snorted. “Because Hoth and the med ship had _lots_ of that.” He groaned as he moved, getting his feet on the floor. “You're right, though. I'm ready to be done with this shuttle.” 

Mara edged herself away from the backrest and eyed the floor critically, clearly debating her ability to stand and stay upright. “Do you have to report back to your Command?” 

Luke shook his head. “Not exactly. I need to find Han and Leia, though.” 

Mara put a hand on the wall and worked her way to her feet. Her legs gave out, dropping her back to the seat, and she glared at the floor in irritation. “Okay. Do you have comm codes for this thing?” 

Skywalker's brow furrowed. “What for?” 

“So you can contact me,” she said, as if it ought to be obvious. “With a rendezvous point or something.” 

“I'm _not_ leaving you here,” Luke said, adamantly. “You're in no condition to be alone. Besides, I just told you I wouldn't leave you again.”

She rolled her eyes and levered herself to her feet, managing to stay there this time. “You can't very well just present me to the Princess. You know who my owner was – what _I_ am. No one's going to -.” 

“I have no intention of asking anyone's opinion,” he cut her off, flatly. “We're soul bonded and staying together. They can adapt and accommodate, or I'll leave the Alliance.” 

Mara blinked, stupefied. “You'd … for me?” she asked, her voice small and bewildered. 

“Are you really so surprised?” he asked, softly, moving to wrap his arms around her. “You were willing to die for me.” 

“You're _Skywalker_ ,” she spluttered, groping for an explanation. “You're _hope_. And power, and – _you_. Everyone wants to die for you. Unless they're trying to kill you, I guess,” she added, a little wryly. 

“Or they're like Leia and go back and forth on the subject,” Luke offered, cheerfully. Ignoring the bone-deep ache in his limbs, he leaned over and swept Mara off her feet into his arms. “And, if I have anything to say about it, you're going to be a Skywalker soon enough, too.”


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Messy healing, a little justice, and some Skycrawlers. Luke had no idea life could be this good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is horrendously overdue... sorry, guys! Thanks for hanging in there while I got swamped by life, and for checking up on me! 
> 
> I'll be fairly quiet for a month at least, doubling down on Gift in my spare moments, but feel free to drop by my tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jedimordsith if you want to say hi, or to catch any fic bits I find a minute to toss out in the meantime!

After Endor, Luke began to measure time by the forward-and-back steps of Mara's healing.

 Three days after the Emperor's death, when he was done with bacta treatments and back on his feet, he asked Mara to marry him. She said no. Or, as Luke preferred to think of it, _not yet_. (“I won't be a burden, Skywalker.”) He asked if she was at least willing to complete their Force bond. She said yes. 

-  -

 One week after the destruction of the Death Star, Luke took a still precariously weak Mara to the hot springs in the depths of Endor's jungle. In the lush, secluded warmth they joined bodies and minds, finishing with clear intent the bond they'd only half-wittingly begun to forge in the wake of Bespin. But it didn't feel like a finishing of anything, at all. It felt like the glorious, if somewhat messy, beginning of a new life as two halves of a single being.

-  -

Two weeks after the Battle of Endor, they experimented with feeding Mara by med-droid-mediated transfusions. Luke had thought it would reduce her perception of being a burden, give her more flexibility, and increase her perceived independence.

 At four weeks, she'd lost so much of the precious little ground she'd managed to gain that he snuck into the med bay while she was feeding, hoping to find clues as to what was going wrong. He found her huddled on the edge of the treatment table, staring blankly at the wall while blood dripped from the bag into her veins. Her sense was hollow and detached, and her lips silently formed the words “selfish little gargoyle” over and over. He called the experiment off instantly.

 By week six, they'd found something of a routine: twice a day, at rising and before bed, Luke cuddled Mara to his chest in the small bunk they shared and let her drink from a small slit he'd cut over his heart. He talked as she fed, telling her stories of growing up on Tatooine, of Dagobah, and the Rogue's latest antics. His hands lazily rubbed her back or toyed with her hair; the reassurance in her feel of him, he discovered belatedly, was just as important as the physical nourishment.

 -  -

 At two months, the paperwork finally went through and Mara was officially inducted into the Alliance. Leia gifted her a tooled leather strap that she wore as a bracelet on her left wrist, hiding the pin still embedded there and keeping it from prying eyes. Mara worked hard – she didn’t know how to do anything else – and quickly caught the eye of Airen Cracken, who promptly drafted her into Intel. Luke worried the first few times she was sent out, away from him – her health was still so parlous. But having proper work to do again anchored her and accelerated her progress. With Leia's help, they found Mara the best minder the Alliance could offer, too - a furry, two-meter tall Selonian with sleek bridled fur and the most soothing presence Luke had ever felt.

 At six months, Mara was declared fully recovered – physically, at least – from the deprivations and depredations she'd suffered in the Emperor's cage. She was still underweight and struggling fiercely with her therapy sessions, despite her minder's gentleness. Luke's memory of those days was a blur. The demands of his new command were seemingly endless and, when he climbed into bed beside Mara late every night, her psychic pain resounded across their bond despite her attempts to quiet and contain it. She did not cry, but there were many, many nights that Luke held her while she trembled long into the night, his fingers stroking the lace-work lattice of lightening scars that cascaded from her throat, down over her shoulders and across her torso, tears leaking from his own eyes for her suffering.

-  -

At ten months, with Han and Chewie at their backs, they raided Jenna Zan Arbor's facility on Bellassa. For the rest of his life, Luke would remember with absolute clarity the stark whiteness of the lab, the blindingly bright lights and the chill of the antiseptic-tinged air. Remember Zan Arbor as a trim, svelte figure in the center of the facility's clockwork efficiency, her blonde hair gone nearly as grey as her steely eyes and his sense of her in the Force like a razor-edged chip of ice. The avarice that twisted her expression when she'd caught sight of Mara had made Luke's hackles rise. (He'd woken from a dead sleep for months after, fumbling for Mara in the dark, heart pounding until he was sure she was safe beside him and not strapped down to one of Zan Arbor's grotesque testing tables.) They'd intended simply to steal Mara's file and shut down the lab. When the smoke cleared, the lab was more than shut down – it was demolished. Jenna was dead and the two newly-captured Force adepts she'd kidnapped, Kam and Tionne Solusar, were free and welcomed with open arms into the Alliance. The details on the intricacies and peculiarities of Mara's condition – and what Zan Arbor had done to create them – were galling reading. To his chagrin, Luke found he could only stomach reading his beloved's file in small increments.

 -  -

 At twelve months, Mara finally hit something approaching an appropriate body weight. Together with the information garnered from her file, it was enough for them to strong-arm the med team into acting.

 Luke stood in the window of the operating theater, arms crossed over his chest, body vibrating with tension and holding tight to the feel of Mara’s unconscious presence across their bond. He barely dared to breathe as the med droids delicately defused and unthreaded the gold pin embedded in her wrist. Then he slumped in a chair, head in his hands, dizzy with relief and hope. Mara stayed on the table for hours as the medical team carved her open, scraped out the atrophied and malformed organs of her digestive tract and fused a state-of-the-art artificial system in their place.

The days that followed were chaotic and miserable as her body transitioned and they worked out – by trial and error, mostly – how to keep her from starving. Mara griped about being weak and useless, railed at being a burden again, groused about how healing kept her from working, and snapped at Luke for fussing. Luke threatened to tie her up somewhere if she didn't _keep still_ and eat her protein paste and let her body adjust. Her Selonian minder resolved the problem by increasing the length and frequency of Mara’s therapy sessions. Luke became accustomed to coming back to their quarters to find her asleep, regardless of the hour, a bucket by the bed in case she woke vomiting, and tear tracks down her pale cheeks.

But slowly – very, very slowly, it felt – she healed.

-  -

At thirteen months, for the first time in her life, Mara ate a piece of cake. Han had commandeered it somewhere for Leia’s birthday and someone slid a piece in front of Mara at the party as they doled it out to everyone else.

It was glaze cake, heavy with butter and cream and glistening with a thick smear of sticky, almost translucent icing. She ate it very slowly, absorbed in the experience of chewing and tasting and consuming food in the presence of other beings without drawing an ounce of interest. Then she sat and stared at her empty plate for a long time. 

-  -

Fourteen months after Endor, Luke asked her again if she'd marry him. This time she said yes. He didn't waste any time. An hour after she'd agreed, they were wed. 

-  -

Despite the illuminations they'd garnered from Zan Arbor's files, the exact interfaces between the Force and the physical body of an adept remained mysterious and indistinct. Mara's body could feed itself, now, and her connection to the Force improved. It became more consistent and stronger, but it still inexplicably lapsed. She obsessively tracked everything she could think of, looking for patterns and variables, striving to find some way to fix herself completely.

Every time her midichlorian count mysteriously plunged Luke readily pulled her to him, offering as much of his Force-rich blood as she needed for as long as it took to stabilize her again. 

“You're not a burden,” he murmured in her ear, each time, his touch as firm and loving as it had been in the beginning when this had been their daily habit. “You're not flawed. I love you.” 

\- -

Mara met and then surpassed every qualification of a Jedi Knight. She slogged tirelessly through the red tape and legwork necessary to help Luke formally re-found the Jedi Order. When students began to trickle in and Luke began to formally split his time between the Alliance and the Jedi, Mara even helped him, Kam, and Tionne teach basic classes.

But she persistently refused to take her Trials. No argument Luke could offer convinced her that someone who couldn't maintain their own link to the Force had a right to the title Jedi. Always, he sighed and kissed her.

“Someday, Jade.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Someday I'll see you made a Jedi if it kills me.”

 - -

Two and half years after the second Death Star, Luke's entire framework for tracking time was turned on its head in the middle of a Benduday afternoon. He'd been sitting in a meeting with half a mental 'ear' tuned toward the bond. Mara had been off lately and guessed something had gone out of calibration with her prosthetic innards. She'd taken the day off and headed to the med bay when he left. Shock and momentary terror slammed across the bond without warning, and he'd been on his feet, pelting out the door before his brain caught up with his body. He'd run, flat out, skidding around corners and slamming through startled bystanders and security alike until he'd found her –one arm wrapped around her stomach, one hand clamped over her mouth as if she'd be sick.

“Mara? Sweetheart, what happened? What's wrong?”

She took the hand off her mouth and gestured toward the holo image on the projector behind him. Luke turned, keeping one hand tight on her knee, expecting some kind of catastrophic rupture of her prosthetic to be splayed across the holo. Instead, the image that met his eyes blanked his mind completely.

It took an embarrassingly long time to stammer, in a voice that sounded distant to his own ears, “is that… a baby?”

“A girl,” Mara whispered, her hand clutching his in a death grip. “Luke -...” She gasped in a breath and let it out on a rush, “ _she's_ _okay_. Not – not like me, at all.”

Luke turned back to her, wide-eyed. “I thought we couldn't...”

Mara's shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “Me, too.”

Luke shifted to lean against the bed beside her, a little dazed. “Are… are you all right?” he asked, after a moment. Thoughts pulled together a little more and his head came up, fear edging in as he addressed the med droid waiting patiently near the projector. “Will she be all right? Her prosthetics -.”

“Adjustments may be necessary if you choose to keep the fetus,” the med droid agreed, neutrally. “They do not occupy exactly the same spaces as their natural counterparts. But there is no reason that Madam Jade-Skywalker should not be able to carry to term.”

“Of course we're keeping her!” Outrage sharpened Mara's voice and both her arms folded protectively over her belly. “She's perfect! Luke -.”

Whatever else she meant to say was lost to his kiss as he twisted sideways and hauled her into his lap, his hands gathering her close and his tongue plundering her mouth.

_Yes,_ he promised across their bond as she responded, her body pressing against his in sparkling delight and sudden eagerness. _Oh, Mara - yes. We're going to have a baby!_

When it became obvious that they had forgotten it was there, the med droid excused itself. It was only much later when, sweaty and rumpled from their passion, they finally noticed its absence and properly registered that they'd just kriffed each other silly in a med bay exam room.

Flushed and warm in Luke's arms, Mara shrugged one shoulder, a smile quirking at her lips. “Not the first time we've done this somewhere that lacked ambiance.”

Luke burst into laughter. 

_\- -_

No one was ever able to satisfactorily explain how Mara had gotten pregnant to begin with – she certainly shouldn't have been remotely capable of it, according to her scans – but Luke very quickly decided he didn't care. All that mattered to him was that their baby was healthy and his wife… well...

Mara was transformed by her pregnancy.

Though the _how_ of things remained frustratingly elusive, the _what_ was brilliantly clear. Her connection to the Force exploded and her body seemed to remap itself every day as midichlorians from their daughter's thriving little body flooded back across the placental link. Everything about Mara seemed to even out, to find its proper place as the days moved on. 

Mara Jade Skywalker was neurotic about her baby. She managed herself – her diet, her physical activity, _everything_ down to the finest detail, determined that her baby would be deprived of nothing. Luke would find her at all hours worrying the latest sonograms between her fingers, anxious that she'd overlooked something. That, in her utter lack of touchstones for proper parenting, she'd somehow ruin their daughter. Always he compensated by coaxing her to bed, reassuring her through touch and supplemental feeding and, yes, a good kriffing, that -as far it was possible to know - she was doing everything right. That it was all right to enjoy her unprecedented health and well-being and Force connection. Every time she earnestly promised him that she'd give him their daughter, safe and healthy no matter what the cost, Luke held her a little closer and made her promise that she'd be there to raise her, too.

Luke resigned his commission and took up the mantle of Jedi full time. 

\- -

Miracle Skywalker was born at 0300 in the morning on the third anniversary of the completion of her parents' soul bond, and her exuberant parents had not the slightest compunction in naming her for what she was. She had a tuft of hair in the finest, softest gold Luke had ever seen and eyes the color of polished jade.

Mara birthed her in their spartan apartment in the only-partially-rebuilt Jedi temple. (“You know how med centers feel, Luke. I don’t want her born into that. It has to be here, where it feels like us. Like… love.” Luke had stroked his wife’s cheek and relented, because how he could argue against that?)

Eyes red with lack of sleep and unshed tears, his body soaked with his own sweat and Mara’s, Luke held his exhausted, disheveled wife against his chest as their sticky, squalling, red-faced – and gloriously healthy - newborn daughter was placed on her breast, and knew his life was complete.

 - -

Mara's vibrant good health did not extend to being able to nurse their baby girl herself. She fretted about formula until Leia, pregnant with twins, appeared at their door and pressed a bottle of breast milk into Mara's hands.

“You'd do it for mine,” she insisted, brooking no argument.

Mara sank onto the form-lounger, Miri cradled in one arm, sucking contentedly at the bottle, as Luke wrapped his arms in gratitude around his sister.

\- -

Mara repaid that perceived debt when she single-handedly slaughtered the squad of Imperial special operatives that tried to kidnap the Organa-Solo twins while she was baby-sitting a year later.

 - -

Two years after the birth of their daughter, Mara decided that if she hadn't lost the Force connection she’d gained – and kept, uninterrupted – from her pregnancy, she wasn’t going to. She took her Trials and passed, as Luke had known she would, with flying colors.  


\- -

When Miri was four, Mara interrupted a class Luke was teaching. Curious and concerned, he let her drag him to the cramped little box of a room he used as a makeshift office. As soon as the door was shut, she thrust a flimsy print-out at him.

“Why now?” she demanded. “How did this happen again?”

Luke looked at the pregnancy test results and grinned. “Let me show you.”

Tucking the flimsy into a pocket, he caught his wife’s face in his hands and kissed her. Thoroughly.

_“Skywalker.”_

His name was a groan, but her hands were already rucking up his tunic as he pressed her back onto his desk, everything but delight forgotten.

\- - 

**Twenty Years Post-Endor**

 

“Skywalker!” Mara shouted, pirouetting neatly and slicing her purple saber blade through a battle droid. “They get this from you!”

“Pretty sure they get it from you, actually,” Luke called back, cheerfully. He ducked the electrically-charged tentacle of a JK-13 security droid as it swung at his head, then jumped up, slicing the appendage off and throwing the droid’s body backward with a hard Force shove. “I’m not the one who threw herself empty-handed and half-dead at a Sith Emperor.”

“Gods!” Miri yelled from the other side of the room, hacking at a JK-13 of her own. “Could you two flirt later?”

“I expect -,” Mara arced her saber around in an artistic swipe, swapping her grip on the hilt, “to be _busy_ ,” she stabbed straight down into the power core the droids had been guarding, “later.”  Task finished, she looked up and caught Luke’s eye with a wink.

“Oh, gross.” Fourteen-year-old Ben Skywalker made an exaggerated gagging noise as he finished off his own battle droid.

“If you don’t like it,” Luke pointed out easily as he shut down his saber, “you could have stayed home. _Like you were supposed to_.”

“And miss the fun?” Miri asked incredulously, flipping her long gold braid over her should and hopping over scattered and smoking droid parts as she joined the rest of her family. “Not a chance.”

“Yeah,” Ben added, stubbornly, rubbing the back of a hand across his freckled cheek and leaving a smear of grease behind. “You always try to leave us out.”

“I try to keep you _safe_ ,” Mara countered, scowling at him as she clipped her saber to her belt. “I’m your mother. It’s my job.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore!” Ben protested. It was becoming a familiar refrain.

“This teenager thing isn’t any better with him than it was with Miri,” Mara griped to her husband as he reached her.

Luke slid an arm around her waist. “Well,” he suggested, thoughtfully. “We could always try for another baby. They were at lot of fun when they were little.”

“Now there’s a thought,” Mara cocked her head and pretended to consider it. “It’s been a while, though. Might take a couple tries.”

“Ugh, stop already!” Miri made a face and rolled her eyes. “We get it. We were supposed to stay home. You don’t have to torture us for it. Force, you’re ridiculous! Do you even know how old you are?”

“I’m game if you are,” Luke told his wife. His tone was serious but his eyes sparkled as he pecked a kiss to her lips.

“That’s it!” Ben threw up his hands dramatically in disgust.  “I’m locking myself in cabin the whole trip home.” His face screwed up as he glared at his parents. “You better shield, too. I don’t want to feel anything weird.”  

Luke laughed. Catching Mara’s hand in his, he gave it a squeeze as they began to pick their way toward the exit. “Think I can kriff you into the wall of our suite without letting the kids get wind of it?” he asked playfully, keeping his voice low.

“Hmm,” Mara bit back a smile. “Might be complicated, Farmboy.”

“Complicated,” he repeated, running his sense over hers, saturating his touch with affection and promise. “You always have been. Lucky for you,” he teased, lifted her hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to it over their entwined fingers, “I can do complicated, too.”

 


End file.
